


Bright Star

by greyxrosesx



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), London Spy, Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Crossover, Gen, M/M, Mostly Gen, Q and Danny are brothers, Q/Bond preslash, Warnings are posted by chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-05-04 13:39:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 23,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5336090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyxrosesx/pseuds/greyxrosesx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loose re-telling of <i>London Spy</i> to include Q as Danny's twin, who erm, also has a mysterious job.<br/> <br/><i>‘You came,’ says his mirror image who now stood in the narrow doorway. ‘I almost didn’t think you would.’ </i></p><p> <i>‘We’re brothers, Daniel,’ says Q and everything hurts just a little bit. ‘It’s never meant much, but I’d like to think it means something. Are we really going to have this conversation on the porch or are you going to do the polite thing and invite me in?’</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Q: A Visit

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem by Keats. The film also coincidentally stars Ben Whishaw. 
> 
> First attempt at writing fanfic, please be kind! (If anyone feels like betaing future chapters for me, I'm forever grateful and will pay you your weight in Internet hugs.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q pays Danny a visit; things don't exactly go as planned.
> 
> (Warnings: discussion of canonical character death; mention of drug use.)

‘You came,’ says his mirror image who now stands in the narrow doorway. ‘I almost didn’t think you would.’ 

‘We’re brothers, Daniel,’ says Q and everything hurts just a little bit. ‘It’s never meant much, but I’d like to think it means something. Are we really going to have this conversation on the porch or are you going to do the polite thing and invite me in?’ 

Daniel by and large prefers ‘Danny,’ but he’s been suffering Q calling him Daniel for almost three decades. A little reluctantly, he steps aside and Q carefully toes off his shoes, leaving them right by the corner. ‘This is a bit rich, coming from the man who won’t even tell me where he lives. Anyway, you’ll have to leave before Scottie gets home.’

‘I put a tracker on his car,’ says Q. He’s only met Scottie once from a distance and he still thoroughly dislikes him. However, he just might inquire about Scottie’s interior decorator. ‘It will alert me when he’s ten minutes away from here.’ 

‘Jesus,’ says Daniel. ‘I don’t suppose you want some tea. Scottie’s into all that organic stuff. You’ll like it.’ 

Daniel’s never been one to ask questions. He’s always been one for the here and now, always skimming by on the tip of his toes or -- Q shudders to think about it -- the tip of a needle. He follows his brother into the kitchen and watches him put on the kettle. But Daniel’s the one who’s called him. That means Daniel must have questions. 

Pity Q has next to nothing to tell him. As the kettle hums, Q says, ‘I prefer this house over where you live, I admit, but why are you here?’ 

‘Scottie says it’s not good that I’m alone,’ Daniel shrugs. He fills two mugs. The air in the kitchen now smells warm and slightly minty. 

‘And yet he’s gone now,’ Q gives him a pointed look. 

‘A man’s got to eat,’ Daniel doesn’t miss a beat. ‘He’s just gone for some takeaway. Besides, you’re here, aren’t you?’ 

‘What would you have done if I’d been busy?” He could have been. When he’d left Q branch, he’d been fresh off helping Bond diffuse an explosive device in Cambodia. He’d instructed one of the others to keep a close eye, but still, Q worries.

‘I probably would have pestered you until you came,’ Daniel hands Q a mug. Q worries about fingerprints, just for a moment. “Sugar?” 

‘No, thank you.’ 

They move to sit down and Q notices how Daniel wraps himself in an afghan. It isn’t even that cold. 

‘Have you been following the news?’ Daniel asks. 

‘Bits and pieces,’ says Q which is a truth and a lie. ‘Seems all quite hush hush.’ 

‘You’re lying again.’ 

‘Habit,’ Q takes brief refuge behind the rim of his cup. He decides that he does like this tea. ‘But I really have nothing to tell you. I merely came here today, to make sure you were all right.’ 

‘You work in securities,’ Daniel accuses him. ‘Something apparently so high-end that you won’t even let me say your bloody name. Surely there’s some secret underground rumour mill that --’ 

‘Daniel,’ Q steels himself. ‘If you’re going to get like that again I’m going to leave.’ Which is the worst thing he could be doing, but what choice does he really have? 

‘The police suspect _me_ of murdering Alex.’ says Daniel. ‘They think he’s a crazy man with a sex dungeon in his attic.’ What he doesn’t tell Q is that Alex isn’t even his real name and that really, he doesn’t know anything. 

But Q knows that already. And not knowing things has never bothered Daniel before. 

‘Did you kill him?’ 

‘What, _no_.’ Daniel’s hand shakes as he puts his mug on the table. A bit of tea sloshes over the edge onto smooth cherry wood. ‘I can’t believe you’d even ask me that.’ 

‘The question is valid,’ says Q. He hates to be unkind, but these are valid, not to mention necessary questions. ‘And if you didn’t, I’ll protect you. I have contacts, in securities.’ 

‘Between CCTV and your contacts, I’ll be out and about in no time,’ Daniel shakes his head. ‘I think your job has gone to your head.’

‘It’s a good job,’ Q says, a touch defensively. A dull beeping tone tells him that Scottie is ten minutes away from the house. He should be leaving. 

Can you please remove the tracker from Scottie’s car?’ 

‘I’ll turn off the alarm,’ Q stands up to leave. ‘He won’t even know that it’s there. Or you could get rid of it. It’s easy. One click.’ 

‘Very funny,’ Daniel gathers the mugs and puts them in the kitchen. Q hopes his brother will have the good sense to wash them before Scottie gets in. But first, he re-emerges to walk Q to the door. ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ 

It’s been a persistent question since they’d both turned about fifteen. Daniel’s answer has always been ‘yes,’ with a different name attached every time, and Q’s has always been no. It’s a wonder the question doesn’t get old. 

‘Of course not.’ Q says, with a quirk to the edge of his lips. ‘We’ll get coffee, next week. I promise you securities’ fraud is much more exciting than my romantic life.’ 

‘I haven’t seen you in six months and you want to get coffee next week?’ 

‘Why not?’ 

Because,’ Daniel makes an annoyed noise in his throat. ‘This is what gets you off, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t understand,’ Q says. And he really doesn’t. He looks Daniel up and down, but anger doesn’t tell him anything. It’s a dangerous emotion. The alarm in his pocket goes off again, this time, the beeping is higher-pitched and more insistent; Q doesn’t like Scottie, but maybe Scottie will keep Daniel out of trouble...at least for a bit. He really has to go. 

‘Sometimes,’ says Daniel. ‘You’re even more fucking transparent than I am. You should go, Q.’ 

The door shuts in his face.


	2. Danny: Vile Bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I think you like to think of yourself as stupid,’ says Boothroyd. ‘But I don’t know why.’
> 
> (Warnings: mentions of alcoholism; brief discussion of underaged sex)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. A huge, enormous thank you to everyone. This was just meant to be a short series of character-study vignettes, but seems to have otherwise sprouted a mind of its own! I hope you continue to enjoy. An additional note - I've now decided to list warnings by chapter because having about 50 tags makes me anxious! Most of the warnings are canonical and present in either _London Spy_ or _Skyfall_ though, so they are there more as a formality than anything...
> 
> Lastly, if the time jumps confuse anybody, do let me know in the comments, please.

When they turn sixteen, three things happen in quick succession. The first: Boothroyd gets an offer from Pembroke College, Cambridge to study computing and information systems; the second: Boothroyd accepts and Danny helps him pack up his half of the room. Boothroyd doesn’t have much stuff -- it’s mostly books, extensive notes from his A-Levels. Notes that he’d offered to leave for Danny when he takes his A-Levels and Danny declines, because Boothroyd is the smart one; he’s okay being the twin that’s not. Danny is not even sure if he wants to go to university.

‘You should, you know,’ Boothroyd had said, as Danny mostly ignores him and dangles a cigarette out of their dingy window. ‘You’re clever too, Daniel. Just in a different way.’

‘If you’d like to call me stupid, _Boothroyd_ , you can. I’m a big boy. I can take it.’ Danny keeps his back to his brother. Boothroyd might have the brains of the family, but at least Danny’s got the much more manageable name. They’re both named after grandfathers, but Boothroyd is the one who is five minutes older and drew the short straw. None of Grandfather Boothroyd’s other names are particularly normal either, and he’s got seven of them. Maybe eight.

Maybe it’s the only time Boothroyd will ever be unlucky in this lifetime. Danny doesn’t think it’s fair.

‘I think you like to think of yourself as stupid,’ says Boothroyd. ‘But I don’t know why.’

Danny opens his mouth and then closes it. Instead, he snubs out his fag on the windowsill and drops it down on the cobblestone streets. ‘Yeah? You can’t know everything. Sorry.’

‘Come with me to the post office,’ Boothroyd touches his shoulder. ‘If you’re going to sulk by the window sucking on a cigarette all day you might as well get some exercise.’

‘Why do you have to go to the post office?’

‘I’m mailing my deed poll. Dad’s finally signed it.’

‘Your deed poll,’ Danny repeats. ‘You’re changing your name?’

Boothroyd shrugs. ‘It seems prudent. Besides, Grandfather Boothroyd is dead.’

‘Where are you going to find another name pretentious enough to stick your head in?’ Danny snorts. ‘And if you got Dad to sign it while he’s.’

It’s a pact that that both of them have; neither of them will say their father drinks. The same pact extends to Danny getting to smoke in their shared bedroom; and Boothroyd cleaning up after Jacob -- and Danny not asking any questions when he whiffs whisky on the tips of Boothroyd's fingers.

‘It counts,’ says Boothroyd simply. ‘Come on.’

 

. . .

 

Outside, it starts to rain, and Danny lights another cigarette. After a block, Boothroyd caves and asks for one. Danny gives him one and feels pleased. Well, smug too, but mostly pleased.

‘I know you’d descend into the first circle of Hell eventually.’

Boothroyd gives him a look, but refuses to take the bait, ‘I think this counts as a transgression more fit for the third circle.’

‘Fuck off,’ says Danny. ‘What’s the third circle?’

‘Gluttony. Excess. You smoke too much.’

Danny kind of wants to hit his twin upside the head, but holds himself steady. ‘What are you changing your name to, anyway?’

‘Joseph,’ Boothroyd says. ‘Daniel was saved from the lion’s den, and Joseph was spared from spending life in prison. Redemption stories.’

‘You don’t believe in that,’ Boothroyd, perhaps moreso than Danny himself is ever staunch in his unbelief. It’s like sometimes Boothroyd won’t even consider something that he can’t see with his own eyes, or touch with his own hands. Danny isn’t exactly one to believe in redemption either, but he has belief if not anything else. He does believe.

‘No, but I like that it brings people comfort sometimes. Maybe it will bring me comfort too, when I’m not thinking about it.’

Oh, so there are times when Boothroyd isn’t thinking. ‘I don’t understand you,’ says Danny. ‘But if it makes you happy.’

‘It does,’ Boothroyd nods. He sounds unconvinced though, and that’s something that Danny can at least start to understand.

 

. . .

 

‘You have to get a girlfriend in uni,’ says Danny. ‘Or a boyfriend, I don’t know what you like.’ Once he really thinks about it, that’s true. He _doesn’t_ know what Boothroyd likes, and that unnerves him a little bit. It’s like looking into a mirror and not seeing anything.

‘I’ll have lectures, tutorials and croquet,’ Boothroyd lifts one shoulder. ‘Doubt I’ll have the time.’

‘You’ve never played croquet.’ Boothroyd won’t be Joseph Frances Holt for another two weeks according to the post office clerk but Danny’s thought of Boothroyd as Boothroyd for so long that he’ll probably always be Boothroyd.

‘I’ve read the Association handbook; and it’s all physics. It’ll be easy to pick up.’

Croquet apparently has an Association handbook and it’s all about physics. Clearly that’s right up Boothroyd’s alley.

‘I still think you should replace croquet with someone to fuck. It’s going to be a good investment. Fucking’s about physics too.’ Danny thinks that Boothroyd ought to respond positively to that sentence. It’s got all the stuff that he likes in it. Physics. Long-term positive investment.

It’s a bit cruel of Danny, he supposes, to tease Boothroyd like this, but any talk of sex makes his brother go a bit red around the edge of ears and Danny likes to see him squirm. Boothroyd squirms about practically nothing.

“Fucking,’ Boothroyd manages to get the word out somehow. ‘Is anatomy. Not physics.’

‘Practically the same thing,’ Danny reaches for his packet of cigarettes again. ‘You’d know if you’d only partake.’ It’s not as if they talk about sex a lot anyway, but there’d been that one time last term when Boothroyd had walked in on Danny and Lloyd Wythcombe in an empty classroom. They’d never spoken about it properly, but Danny imagines it sometimes, how the conversation would go. If Boothroyd’s first time had been unadventurous and uneventful as his own had been. Danny still doesn’t know what Boothroyd likes. Maybe he’ll never know.

(Lloyd Wythcombe hadn’t been Danny’s first, either.)

‘It’s not,’ says Boothroyd. ‘But I don’t feel like debating this with you, Daniel. I’m going home.’

Boothroyd doesn’t ask Danny if he wants to come with him, but Boothroyd’s been the clever one for as long as they both can remember. He knows the answer.


	3. Q: Damage Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'We need to talk about Alistair Turner.' 
> 
> (Warnings: mention of suicide. I make up a bunch of stuff about how MI6 operates.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heartfelt thanks, and oh my goodness yes, I went down _that_ route. I promise, I do have a plan for this.

Q remembers when most everyone at MI6 had thought 007 had died after Moneypenny had accidentally shot him in Istanbul. It hadn’t been Q’s remit, but everyone was scrambling around because of the list. It’d somehow fallen to Q to sort out Bond’s flat in South Kensington and also all of his belongings. Of course, no one thought 007 was really _dead_ but they couldn’t play favourites and M had been adamant. Bond had no family, and the only piece of property to his name was an old estate up in Scotland and that too, was in the process of being sold. 

So really, what remained of Bond was only an empty flat (soon not to be his), a nice collection of tailored suits, two tuxedos, and few rusted bullets never shot. 

Then of course, Bond had turned up again, and everyone resolved to do things differently. Among these people, was Gareth Mallory. 

Moneypenny actually looks a bit worried for him as Q passed her desk, ‘...Has Bond been blown up?’ 

‘I think you’d better save your sparkling wit for the man in that office,’ Moneypenny returns his barb with equal dryness and shoos him towards M’s door. ‘Bond’s just boarded a flight for Heathrow. Flight’s 25 hours, not counting layover. But you knew that.’ 

‘Did I ask?’ Q made a vaguely noncommittal, but still annoyed sound in his throat. 

‘No, but I thought I’d tell you. I’ll also have him call you when he gets in. I think he needs a new gun.’ 

‘Q?” Mallory’s voice sounds from the inner sanctum. ‘You and Ms. Moneypenny can pick out new toys for Mr. Bond on your own time. I don’t have all day.’ 

And so Q goes. 

Olivia Mansfield and Bond had shared something that Q once imagined sharing with his own mother. But Annmarie Holt had jumped off in front of an oncoming bus before any of that had come to pass. And of course, Mallory is nothing like his father. Jacob Holt was a damn drunk the same way Danny had liked to take drugs.

(And the same way Boothroyd used to cling on to a bottle of cheap Chardonnay from a college wine cellar, but he no longer thinks about that.) 

‘Sit down, Q.’ 

Q sits. 

‘We need to talk about Alistair Turner, also known as Alexander Turner.’ 

Q remembers when M had asked him about family all of those years ago. She’d told him, that most people don’t even manage a brother. 

‘What about Turner?’ 

Mallory gives him a look and proceeds to ignore his ignorance, ‘Bizarre murders happen every day. It’s London, you know, a dangerous city. Eventually the police will run out of leads; the media will grow tired of harping on about a dead corpse, and we can move on. At this point and time, we are not sharing Turner’s file with the police, and every effort is going to be made to keep it quiet, that he worked for us.’ 

‘So we’re lying to Scotland Yard.’

Mallory’s face is cast in stone, ‘Until we know what’s going on, we’re considering this incident a matter of national security.’

‘This incident,’ Q repeats. ‘Don’t tell me.’ Mallory’s use of the word ‘incident’ is neat, but fluid and changeable. ‘But they found a body.’ 

‘A body,’ says Mallory. ‘And whoever discovered the body was probably traumatised by the sight. He could have been ah, confused.’ 

As for Q’s imagination, it extended Daniel’s being at home in a sex dungeon, but he can’t for the life of him imagine his brother discovering a body. Daniel hadn’t called him, not until the week afterwards. Granted, Q had the ability to make the same call, but he hadn’t, either. 

‘The body, whose is it?’ 

Alex Turner’s,’ says Mallory. That could have been anything. Anyone. 

‘And what’s going to happen to Alistair Turner?’ 

‘We’ll have to see,’ Mallory slides a file across his desk to Q. ‘For now, there’s another problem I need to entrust to you.’ 

It’s a file on a Daniel Edward Holt, age 29. Q has seen this before. He’d helped collate it. Detailing three arrests for drug possession, and one report on sexual assault committed against him at the age of 18; the same year that Jacob Holt drank his last shot of cheap whisky; the same year that Joseph Francis Holt joined MI6. The file also documents the result of every HIV test Daniel has ever taken. Thankfully all of them have turned out negative. Finally, there is a list of names. About twenty of them, and Q thinks they must have missed more than a few names. 

Alexander Turner’s name is last on that list. 

‘Daniel would not be a problem, I think, if the police would stop suspecting him of murdering his partner. It’s cruel.’ Daniel is upset; who wouldn’t be? But Q would know, wouldn’t he? It will sometimes take six months, but a mirror always know itself. 

‘Do you have a good relationship with him?’ 

Which is probably Mallory’s way of asking Q if he’s upset by this whole thing, if he’s all right. ‘He’s my twin. He’ll always be my shadow, and I his. Wherever we happen to go.’ 

It’s not an answer, and Q largely prefers not to speak poetry when he can help it. But the answer seems to satisfy Mallory. ‘Have a word with Detective Taylor at the Yard.’ He slides another file across the desk. This one is much thinner; with grainy pictures and Taylor’s service record with the CID. Pictures aside, she’s got an impressive record and stands a good chance of being promoted next year. 

‘These aren’t real.’ At least, he doesn’t think they’re real. However, it’s all about appearances and they certainly look very convincing, which makes Q feel a bit sorry. 

‘Sacrificial bread-crumbs,’ Mallory gives him a look. ‘If you hurry you might catch her at her gym.’ 

Q takes two of the photos and folds them into careful quarters. ‘So I won’t have to lie about someone else also having these photographs. I’d rather she not shoot me.’ 

Then he remembers, and Mallory is just as every bit as good as M, because he waits. 

‘Daniel has a friend named Scottie. That he’s staying with.’

‘We have a file on him too,’ Mallory shrugs. ‘If you want to fill in the gaps of what you probably already know, then you’re welcome to look at it later.’


	4. Danny: Et in Arcadia Ego

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dear Daniel,_
> 
> _If anything, you should seriously consider attending university for the port and cheese. Both are proving to be excellent in equal measure, though I suspect you’d prefer one over the other._
> 
> (Warnings: underaged clubbing/drinking.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Evelyn Waugh's _Brideshead Revisited_...I don't like the movie, BUT Ben Whishaw is Sebastian so I can't help myself. By the end of this, I'll probably manage to cram in every Whishaw reference there is ever. 
> 
> 'Steve Fields' is a character name I took from _The Guardian_ 's [review](http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/nov/23/london-spy-recap-episode-three-danny-mistakes-nightmare) of _London Spy_ episode 3. It's since become a lynchpin so hopefully they haven't let me down!

Term starts, and for the first time, Danny goes to school alone. He gets caught with someone who isn’t Lloyd Wythcombe, and because he’d been caught by someone who isn’t Boothroyd, he nearly gets expelled for indecency. In the end, the Head Teacher remembers Boothroyd, and how brilliant he was, the finest student in the history of Hurstmere School and yeah all right, he could see how Danny has potential. Danny just doesn’t try. 

Term has started in Cambridge too, and three weeks later he gets a letter from Boothroyd like e-mail doesn’t exist. (Doesn’t the guy study computing?) Boothroyd adheres to tight joined-up writing and in some places, Danny has to squint: 

_Dear Daniel,_

_If anything, you should seriously consider attending university for the port and cheese. Both are proving to be excellent in equal measure, though I suspect you’d prefer one over the other. Of course, I ought not to be drinking (it’s illegal!) but as long as I don’t purchase a drink at the college bar, then no one will say anything. I’m learning plenty on my course, but I know you don’t want to hear about that, so I’ll keep it to myself._

_I live on top of a spiral tower. I like my room; it’s even got an adjacent study and a great view of the court. People vomit onto the grass sometimes and then the porter gets mad. The only bad thing about my room, I suppose is that I have to move out of here next year and I’ll have to lug all my things downstairs again. Maybe by then you’ll be here to help me._

_I’m enclosing some money, which I hope you will use to come see me. (If you just waste it on fags, I will know.)_

_Oh, and this girlfriend thing. Maybe you can give me a few pointers when you visit._

_Best,  
B._

Oh, and this girlfriend thing. Fucking casual like. Maybe working fast does run in the family. Danny takes the money and folds it very carefully in his jacket pocket. And then he changes his mind and hides it under Boothroyd’s mattress. Boothroyd’s side of the room is pretty much empty now, but at least his bed still has a sheet on it. When Danny gets someone to climb through the window and spend the night, nobody ever sleeps on Boothroyd’s bed. 

Downstairs, a glass smashes and Danny can hear Jacob swearing to himself.

Maybe tomorrow he’ll buy a ticket to Cambridge for the weekend. 

 

. . .

 

Oh, and another thing. Perhaps marginally less surprising than Boothroyd’s ‘oh, this girlfriend thing,’ but Danny finds upon visiting Cambridge at the weekend that Boothroyd actually has friends. Pembroke suits him, in the way that Hurstmere fit like a mere average glove. There’s Steve Fields, a finalist whose father is a big shot MP; there’s Clarence, who lives down the hall in the same spiral tower as Boothroyd. There are Lydia and Catherine, who are sisters. Also twins, but they don’t look alike. Lydia is the one who works for the college wine cellar and she manages to make away with two bottles of port. In her own words, she uses her mousy face to her advantage. 

The Boothroyd that laughs with his friends and makes jokes about being horrible at croquet is someone that Danny barely recognises. He’s Joe to the lads, and Joey to the twins. 

Thanks to the port, Boothroyd’s bedroom looks a bit destroyed and Clarence has already gone back to his own room. Lydia and Catherine have left, weighing Steve down between them. 

It’s just him and Boothroyd again, like old times. 

Boothroyd is drinking the last of the port. 

‘I was doubtful at first,’ says Danny, bumping his legs thoughtfully against the side of Boothroyd’s bed. ‘But if you’re spending term time drowning in port and pining after a girl, then I guess yeah. Good for you. Which one is she?’ 

‘I’m sorry?’ 

‘You know,’ Danny swipes the bottle from Boothroyd, only to find it just about empty. ‘Don’t play dumb. The girlfriend thing.’

‘Oh,’ Danny thinks Boothroyd must really be drunk, because he doesn’t even go red around the edges of his ears. ‘Well then, Lydia.’ 

‘What do you mean ‘well then, Lydia?’ This isn’t a game show.’ 

‘Don’t lecture, Daniel. For fuck’s sake.’ Boothroyd stands; he’s a bit shaky on his feet. However, he manages to get the window open without Danny’s help and he hurls right into the court. 

Then he slumps back down on the floor again and Danny helps him get up into the bed. 

‘If they work out the trajectory of my vomit, they’ll probably fine me.’ 

‘I’ll pay,’ says Danny. ‘Consider it repayment for the port.’ 

 

. . .

 

The next night they go out. Clarence doesn’t go out on Saturdays, but even he’s convinced in the end. Of course, Boothroyd doesn’t want to go out either, but he does get fined in the morning and Danny did pay. So it’s simple maths. Boothroyd owes him one. 

‘Please don’t snog Steve,’ says Boothroyd. ‘I see the way you look at him. And the way he looks at you.’ 

‘What?’ The music’s loud. Booming loud, and Danny wonders if it hurts Boothroyd’s delicate sensibilities. Hell, Boothroyd is even drinking a glass of Chardonnay in a nightclub. He’s pretty sure that’s not allowed anywhere. 

‘I said,’ Boothroyd cuffs Danny purposefully around the neck. Danny smells wine on his breath and decides he hates wine. ‘Don’t snog my friend. He’ll think I want to snog him next, and you don’t know if he’s even that way inclined.’ 

‘You,’ Danny returns the gesture and leans in. ‘Think way way too bloody much. Go snog Lydia and Steve won’t even think about snogging you.’

Steve is coming back towards them now, a pint in each hand. Before he takes his drink from Steve, Danny steps away from Boothroyd and gives his brother an exaggerated wink. ‘Steve’s dad is a MP, right? It’s worth a shot.’


	5. Q: Mirror, Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is not Q’s job to interrogate (or blackmail) people.
> 
> (Warnings: blackmail, discussion of suicide.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small confession: so I've written about 20k of this before Ep. 5 aired and now I don't even know. Before that, I only half-heartedly skimmed Ep. 4, so I just. This whole thing is going to be a lot more AU than I thought...I've never expected a series to fly off the rails so fast (and in the process, trample all over my muse), but I do hope you guys continue to give this a chance! Many thanks very much :).

Sometimes, in particularly dire circumstances, Q takes the tube. He’s got to look the part. Slightly windblown hair and glasses askew. It’s better to catch these sorts of people off-guard. Detective Theresa Taylor emerges from the gym in fitted yoga pants and a slightly unwieldy looking yoga-mat tucked under her arm. She always drives to the gym; it’s much more convenient that way. 

Her car is practical and could easily be mistaken for a rental. It’s likely not coincidence. 

‘...Mr. Holt?’ she says, stopping short. 

‘No,’ Q shakes his head. ‘I’m not Daniel Holt. But I think you should talk to me anyway. I hear you can be quite -- how do I put this delicately, erm. Flexible.’

. . .

They go to a novelty coffee place nearby and Q offers to pay for her coffee. Surprisingly, she lets him. You can tell a lot about an individual from what they order. Taylor’s coffee (Americano, with just a splash of semi-skimmed milk and a half packet of honey) says she’s health conscious and maybe even reasonable.

‘I was told to show you these,’ Q says. In both photographs she does look flexible and the photographs overall demonstrate both excellent technique (on both sides) and wonderful imagination. ‘I was also told, that they might be used to ensure your cooperation.’ 

‘This is ridiculous,’ says Taylor. She picks up one of the photographs and examines them. But she doesn’t hold them up to the light or anything, because that would have been daft. ‘These aren’t even real.’ 

There is a bit of sick satisfaction that wells up in the pit of Q’s stomach. Last week, no doubt she’d put Danny through the ringer in maybe the same way. It is not Q’s job to interrogate (or blackmail) people, but he’s got an advanced degree in systems and these things are systems. Granted, behavioural systems are not Q’s strong suit, but he’s adaptable just like how Taylor’s flexible. 

_Maybe you’ve been mistaken all along._

_Tell me, if this perfectly suitable explanation doesn’t agree with you, you best offer me an alternative. What else is there?_

‘I’ve got them authenticated, by the young man with you in that photograph. He seemed eager. Not that I’d blame him.’

‘Well, then he’s lying,’ Taylor says. ‘I have never seen him in my life. Who do you work for? It doesn’t bode well for you that you’re threatening a Detective of the Yard. I have resources.’ 

‘I do not wish to argue with you, Detective. I barely want to threaten you with the exposure of these photos; I do think it’s distasteful.’ Q says, and all of that is true. Honesty is good in sparse measure. Especially in situations like this.

‘You must work for Mr. Holt’s associate,’ Taylor sips her coffee. ‘I’ve heard that he is ex-MI6.’ 

‘As have I,’ Q shrugs. 

‘You look remarkably like Danny. If you took off your glasses.’

The fact that she calls his brother Danny doesn’t escape him. Q vaguely wonders if she knows anything more than she’s telling, but if Mallory is keeping mum on Alistair Turner’s file, then there’s nothing for her to find. Repressed, unhappy bankers are not uncommon here in London. ‘I’ve only seen his picture in the paper.’ And there had only been thankfully the one. ‘I confess I couldn’t see very well.’ 

‘And yet here you are, on his behalf,’ Taylor smiles unkindly. ‘You seem to be just as confused as he is.’ 

‘You are a good Detective,’ Q says. He shifts the other photograph towards her. ‘Don’t let this be the end of your career. And even if the pictures don’t achieve their intended goal, then a few well-placed queries about the trajectory of your investigation -- perhaps a suggestion of your own bigotry, or the close-mindedness of the police as a whole. That might take longer, but it will be just be effective. What I ask of you is simple.’ 

Taylor studies him carefully, ‘You want me to stop my investigation on Daniel Holt.’

‘And the murder of Alex Turner in its entirety.’

‘And the murder of Alex Turner in its entirety.’ 

Q stands, ‘We understand each other perfectly. You have 48 hours.’

. . .

48 hours later, Q rings his brother. It takes Daniel forever to pick up the phone, ‘Guess who I just got off the phone with?’

‘The Queen of Sheba?’ Q leaned back against his chair. Security feeds surround him on several screens, and he thinks he ought to have special cameras installed outside Scottie’s house. He could track Daniel’s mobile to see if he’s still there, but he doesn’t. 

‘Detective Taylor,’ Danny says. ‘Do you know what she told me?’ 

Q’s heart stops up his throat right then. He’s still a novice at this blackmail thing; although if anything, their coffee had gone down well by his own estimate, but if by some dreg of chance Taylor was brazen enough to tell Daniel about what Q had done...surely Daniel would put the two and two together.

Daniel has never believed him, but Q believes he is clever. They can’t be mirrors and not be, somehow. It is one of the very few beliefs he has. 

‘Tell me, Daniel.’ 

‘She said, that they’d gone over Alex’s effects and they’ve reviewed the circumstances of his death. They’ve decided to close Alex’s case as suicide. There’s no way a man with predilections like that can know true happiness. So of course he killed himself. It's a _logical_ conclusion. She said that to me.’

Q hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since he's joined MI6, but oh, it’s tempting. ‘The police thinks Alex is a crazy man with a sex dungeon in his attic. Your own words, Daniel. Suicide is a viable option to consider. I’m just glad that the police will not bother you anymore.’ 

‘But Alex wasn’t a crazy bloke with a secret dungeon!’ Instead of sounding relieved, Danny is sounding a touch hysterical. This can’t be a good sign. ‘And he wasn’t suicidal or unhappy! He was with _me_. We were going to go away for the weekend. I. Boothroyd, I _love_ him. You’ve got the emotional range of a fucking brick but try to fucking understand. Alex wouldn’t kill himself.’ 

There are a couple of things that Q could have winced about in that sentence, but he winces at ‘Boothroyd,’ It’s a name he forgets about. 

‘Alex was murdered. And I’m going to go to the papers tomorrow. The police are covering something up.’ 

_Shit_. ‘You’re going to tell the papers. And tell them what?’ 

‘The truth,’ Daniel says. ‘I didn’t kill him but someone else did.’ 

‘Who?’ 

‘I -- I don’t know.’ 

‘Daniel, you’ll be laughed out of their offices before you even get anywhere. You can’t just go in guns ablazing accusing the police. That’s libel.’ 

‘Then help me get to the bottom of this,’ Daniel’s voice breaks a little. ‘Please. Between you and Scottie, I’m sure. I’m sure we can put this to rest.’ 

For a moment, Q considers telling Daniel that Alex is alive. That thought comes and goes in mere seconds. There are more pressing matters at hand, ‘What do you mean, between me and Scottie?’ 

‘Scottie is ex-MI6,’ says Danny, repeating information Q already knows by heart. ‘He was let go and transferred to a desk job after they figured out that he was a homosexual. He’s still got people who will talk to him, quietly of course.’ 

‘I’m sorry,’ says Q. ‘But I have it on good authority that MI6 isn’t quite like that anymore. Still, I have to wonder how accurate Scottie’s sources are going to be. I have to assume most of his colleagues have retired.’ 

This is going from bad to worse. 

‘So we’ll hit them with a two-pronged approach. Scottie with his inside information. And you, doing whatever it is you...do.’ 

‘It’s not like I’m a supercomputer,’ says Q. ‘I don’t like to mess with MI6. No one does, in my line of work. The private sector is fast growing, but we’re still not equipped to take on the government. Which is sort of the point.’ 

‘You’re just saying that because you don’t like Scottie.’ Daniel says, his voice is harder. 

‘No, I’m telling you the truth, Daniel.’ Q lets out a sigh through his nose. ‘But you’re right. I’ve never liked Scottie and I like him even less now, that I know he’s MI6.’ 

‘Ex-MI6.’ 

‘Once a spy, always a spy,’ Q moves the security feed of Waterloo Station to another screen on his right, and pulls up Daniel’s phone records. He has to install a remote proxy and erase any evidence of this call when it’s over. They’ve already said MI6 about sixteen times. If Q himself wasn’t security, he’d be absolutely appalled. ‘Trust me, I’ve met a few in my day.’ 

‘Well,’ Daniel’s flat tone hasn’t changed. ‘Scottie was there for me when you weren’t.’ 

Q draws a sharp breath. ‘Daniel.’ 

‘I couldn’t get a hold of you for an entire year. And what about now, six months? You don’t get to be like this when you disappear and reappear again, Boothroyd. You didn’t even attend Dad’s funeral.’ 

Q had, after a fashion. He’s listened to the whole thing thanks to a pin recorder that he’d paid dearly for someone to drop in Daniel’s breastpocket. He assumed that the recorder got wound and broken in the washer afterwards. Or maybe whoever he’d paid to plant it there had the foresight to steal it back -- not that he would have found anything. 

‘ _Daniel_.’

Daniel quiets. 

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I really am. I still think about it and I wonder if. But that’s _if_. It’s never going to be anything now. I can try to help you, but you’re going to have to let me do it the way I see fit, not the way you want.’ Q says all this in a rush, before he changes his mind, or worse, regrets his words. 

‘How about the three of us meet for dinner?’ Daniel says carefully, after a moment’s silence. ‘You can even pick the restaurant and the day. But I would like you to meet Scottie. He’s important to me.’ Another pause, ‘I would have liked you to meet Alex too. You’d probably like him.’ 

Q has met Alistair Turner before, but it’s something he can’t ever say. He might have even been friends with the man, in a manner of speaking. Alistair is normal, colourless, but Daniel’s always been the one to provide all the splashes of colour in the lives he touches. Q would have -- did -- like him. Daniel says he’s in love and Q believes that Daniel believes. 

That’s enough for now.

‘I’ll let you know a time,’ says Q.


	6. Danny: Descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I’m trying to protect you, Daniel. That’s the only thing dishonesty is good for.’ 
> 
> (Warnings: drugs and booze, at this point standard?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for still trucking on with me! This fic is now 30k and still unfinished, what am I doing. This the last of the flashback chapters for a while, but fairly important, I think.
> 
> For those interested, Elizabeth Smart's _By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept_ is a beautiful poem novel. I really recommend it.

Danny goes to Cambridge a couple of more times during Boothroyd’s first year. He sees Boothroyd, but then he sees Steve too and maybe prefers one over the other, if because there’s snogging (and sex) and drugs involved. The drugs had been sort of a new thing, but Steve had been kind about it. He’d breathed hazy smoke into Danny’s mouth and Danny likes it a lot. 

He wonders if Boothroyd knows about Steve and/or the drugs. Boothroyd becomes more and more withdrawn, obsessed with his work, whatever that work happens to be. He’s okay with not knowing, It makes his life much easier. 

Danny still receives sporadic letters from Boothroyd, but the letters aren’t about port and cheese anymore. They’re not even about ‘girlfriend things.’ Instead, as wine more persistently clings to Boothroyd’s breath when Danny goes to see him, Boothroyd becomes much more concerned with -- even _obsessed_ with fixing -- Danny’s life, making it perfect. His letters start containing studies done by Oxford, Cambridge, and Johns Hopkins about the many, many hazards of smoking; UCAS tip sheets; and even some lines of poetry taken from Elizabeth Smart. Boothroyd hates poetry. 

_All people seem criminally irrelevant. I ignore everyone and everything, and, if crossed or interrupted in my decay, hate. Nature is only the irking weather and flowers crude reminders of stale states of being._

‘Are you in love with a married man?’ says Danny when Boothroyd finally picks up. 

‘What?’ Boothroyd sounds bleary and tired. Drunk, and it’s barely the afternoon. ‘Daniel, I said I’m. There are exams in two weeks and I need to study. Unless you have a pressing question about UCAS, please go away.’ 

‘I looked up a synopsis to the poem you sent me.’ Maybe Boothroyd will be proud of Danny for knowing the word synopsis.

They aren’t best friends; they aren’t friends, of course not. Half of the time it doesn’t even feel like they’re brothers, but what never changes is that they will always wear each other’s faces. 

‘...So unless I go to uni you won’t speak to me?’ 

There is a long sigh from the other end. ‘Daniel, you know that’s not what I meant. I’m always happy to talk to you, it’s just that I’m.’ 

‘Drunk.’ 

‘Am not. Anyway, I only sent you the lines because I thought you would enjoy them.’ 

‘You’re lying again,’ Boothroyd is an exceedingly good liar. It’s how Danny is starting to be able to tell. He’s learned from the very best.

‘I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the poem.’ 

‘Will you quit it about the fucking poem, Boothroyd. That’s not what I’m talking about.’ 

There is a long, long silence. Danny expects Boothroyd to hang up, but no. HIs brother is still breathing. Danny listens to him breathe in and out. Boothroyd almost sounds like he’s about to cry. 

Finally, Danny asks, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Are you at home?’ 

‘No, I went out for a walk.’ Danny says. ‘Ran out of cigarettes.’

‘Daniel, didn’t you read the studies I sent you?’ 

‘Fell asleep reading ‘em,’ Danny wanders into a corner shop. Boothroyd has the uncanny ability to make him feel guilty, so before he goes to the counter to ask for his cigarettes, he consciously goes to the produce aisle and picks out one red apple. ‘And relax, I bought an apple too. Not that you’re in any shape to judge me.’ 

‘I’m not drunk.’ 

Danny mostly ignores him. He goes to the counter and asks for a pack of cigarettes and leaves. It’s very very cold. February time, and there is still fresh slush on the ground. 

‘I’ll end up like Dad, one day,’ says Boothroyd without warning. ‘And I know you’ll probably end up like Mother. I know about you and Steve.’ 

They’ve never talked properly about how Mum had been found on a street corner as a fresh corpse having being run over by an oncoming B12 bus. Later, it was discovered, that she had drugs in her system. They’d only been twelve, but the next day Jacob renewed his vows with whisky and Danny had accepted his first cigarette from an older girl in Year 9. Danny can’t remember what Boothroyd had been doing the next day, but it was the day where everything had changed, he remembers thinking. 

Except Boothroyd. He remained the same. He had escaped.

Except now Boothroyd is a drunk, if a conscientious one. 

‘What about me and Steve?’ 

‘I know he gives you drugs when you come visit, doesn’t he? He’s been sent down for possession. Just yesterday, we all saw him and any day now the Principal is expecting an angry letter from the MP.’ 

Danny laughs. And then he laughs some more. He must look crazy and there’s a bus coming. 

‘Daniel,’ Boothroyd’s voice sounds his ear. ‘Daniel. Why are you laughing?’ 

‘Nothing. Just. All this. Fucking hilarious this.’

‘Daniel, do you need me to come home?’ 

‘There’s probably not enough booze to cover both you and Dad in the house, Boothroyd. And no, I don’t need you for anything. I’m going to hang up now. Oh, and before I forget, I’m not going to uni. Not even for the cheese.’ 

‘Daniel,’ there’s a strange strain in Boothroyd’s voice like he’s slowly getting the air squeezed out of his lungs like a deflating balloon. 

‘I don’t really feel like talking to you. If all you’re going to do is fucking lie to me.’ 

‘I wasn’t lying about Steve being sent down.’ 

Boothroyd can be fucking dense sometimes when he wants to be, ‘That’s the truth about someone else. You never tell the truth about yourself.’ 

‘I don’t see how that’s important,’ Boothroyd says. 

‘I’ve never lied to you,’ which is...Danny is going to go with more or less true. ‘If you never are honest with me, then it means you don’t trust me.’ 

‘I’m trying to protect you, Daniel. That’s the only thing dishonesty is good for.’ 

‘Yeah, and what are you trying to protect me from? Monsters under my bed?’ 

‘How about from the monsters we’re both becoming?’ And it is the way Boothroyd says it, so damn earnest and honest -- the very thing that Danny is accusing him of not being, that he keeps his mouth shut. 

Then Danny says, ‘I have to go.’ 

This time, Boothroyd doesn’t stop him from hanging up. After all, if even Boothroyd has joined him in the third circle of Hell, then what chance did any of them have?


	7. Alex: Peculiar (Interlude I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex meets a peculiar young man.
> 
> (No warnings.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...So I might have lied a little about last chapter being the last of the flashbacks for a while, sorry! But on the other hand, I don't think this counts and I'm rather proud of it. Please enjoy!

‘Peculiar’ is a word which comes in shades. That word has always been eating quietly at Alex like a quiet shadow, not that he knows much about how words turn or how to care much for them. His talent is in numbers, in knowing. In the truth, because numbers don’t lie. But in school, he was ‘peculiar’ because he was clever, and at university, some of his peers had remarked how _peculiar_ it was, in a less kind way, that Alex always preferred to be alone. 

(He’d gone to an institution in London because. In a big city it was easier to be alone. Oxford and Cambridge had both wanted him, but it would have killed him to be alone there.) 

Everyone at MI6 is peculiar. The provost of his university tells him this in those exact words and encourages him to apply. 

‘Because you think I’m peculiar, Professor?’ 

She blanches, but only for a moment, then smiles. ‘No, because I think you’ll fit in. Dr. Shaw said he’d be happy to write you a reference. The first glowing reference Marcus will have written in about a decade, if I remember. You’re almost frightfully clever, Alistair. I mean, Alex. You prefer Alex, don’t you?’ 

_Frightfully clever_. He wonders, if she means it. If she’s afraid of him too. 

‘Yes, Professor.’ Alex is surprised she remembers. He doesn’t know her very well, but she’s peculiar too, because while most provosts take refuge in their offices, she’s more at home in the stacks. 

. . .

Alex doesn’t get the job he applies for at MI6 originally. The Q-branch is on the constant lookout for talented, imaginative minds, and there’s no doubt Alex -- Alistair Turner -- is at least one of those things. 

However, he is given another job at MI6 as a codebreaker which is part of a separate department. He meets M (everyone meets M when they first start, he’s told), who helps him review his details and what she tells him, is that he’d nearly cinched the position at Q-branch, but in the end, she’d worried about his happiness. So they’d gave the Q-branch job to someone else and as luck would have it, a senior codebreaker had been looking for an opportunity for early retirement. 

‘Happiness and working for MI6 seem an odd combination, M.’ says Alex. 

‘Of course; but don’t you think we have to make it work?’ M makes a thoughtful noise. ‘We do what is necessary here, Mr. Turner. What is necessary is often what no one else will do, what no one else can do. In a sense, you’ve been chosen for a very cruel task. It will wear on you, working here. And maybe you’ll want to retire at the age of forty.’ 

She pauses briefly and the intensity of her stare suddenly makes Alex look down at his own hands. ‘I suppose what I mean to say is, that if we are able to offer you even a modicum of happiness, then that is the least we owe you.’ 

‘Who got my job at Q-branch?’ Alex is emboldened by the fact that M owes him a small debt of happiness; he decides (if a bit rashly) that it would make him happy to know. Perhaps she will even answer. 

‘A rather peculiar young man not unlike yourself; he needed that job,’ says M as she turns back to her work.

. . .

It takes Alex another two weeks to manage a visit to Q-branch. Between settling in and handling his predecessor’s small loose ends, along with his own assignments, Alex hardly has the time. 

But it is a Thursday when he makes it down there and where he expects the Q-branch to be awash with busy activity, the whole place is quiet for the humming of various computers and their corresponding screens. Q-branch spans the entirety of the basement floor (with the exception of four panic rooms built along into the walls), and there isn’t a soul in sight.

‘May I help you?’ 

The voice comes from behind one of the computers, and since Alex doesn’t see readily see a human being within his line of sight, he assumes that the cameras affixed to the entrance of Q-branch has alerted someone. 

Alex raises his hands, ‘Don’t shoot me with a laser or anything please. I work here.’ 

The voice laughs, ‘Is that what you think we do? Develop ridiculous weapons based upon bad science fiction?’ 

Maybe M has a point; this job isn’t meant for him. Rather than confirm the voice’s suspicions, Alex opts for a question, ‘Then what are you doing?’ 

‘I’m trying to revive a mobile phone,’ says the voice. ‘Someone’s smashed it, but apparently the data on the SIM is invaluable.’ 

‘Where’s everyone else?’ Because other people must work here. Alex makes his way around the maze of desks and glaring screens, until he comes to a desk with someone actually sitting in it. Granted, employees of MI6 have the freedom to take lunch, if they wish, but Alex thinks the people in his own office never leave their desks. 

‘Please don’t stand behind me,’ says the voice. The owner of the voice is sat hunched over, boney shoulders covered by a sand-coloured cardigan. 

‘Sorry,’ says Alex and he moves up, so that he’s standing right beside the desk. His new perspective tells him that the owner of the voice wears glasses and appears to be short-sighted. 

‘Q has taken the others out to lunch. To a new sushi restaurant, I think. It’s R’s birthday.’ 

Alex studies the contents laid out on the other man’s desk. They are indeed parts of a mobile, and the man seems very deft with small tweezers. ‘The bad science fiction is right about one thing.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘You have nicknames,’ Alex says. ‘Isn’t it strange?’ In his own office, whenever someone wants him they call him Mr. Turner. It makes him feel fifty. 

‘I am used to having many names,’ says the man. ‘So no. Not really.’ 

‘Why aren’t you at lunch with Q and the others for R’s birthday?’ 

‘I barely know R and Q never speaks to me unless he wants me to complete a task. Like this.’ The man gestures. ‘I don’t see any merit in going to a celebratory lunch with people I don’t know. This is a more productive use of my time.’ 

Then it hits Alex: this is the man who’s taken his supposed position at Q-branch. The one M calls peculiar. 

‘What do they call you?’ 

The man gives him a look, ‘U, coincidentally.’ And then he laughs and the laugh sounds bitter. ‘Unremarkable, until I get to the throne. Which I will.’ 

Alex has never really thought about it. He knows how to be lonely and alone in his own skin, because that’s the way it’s always been. He’s never seen anyone else be alone. 

‘I applied for this job too,’ Alex says. ‘But M said I wouldn’t be happy here.’ 

U touches a hand briefly to his glasses, ‘Do you think she’s right?’ 

‘Now that I’ve seen you, yes.’ 

‘That’s honest of you,’ U says, and he sounds a bit impressed. ‘Most people would lie for the sake of politeness.’ 

‘I believe in honesty over politeness,’ says Alex. ‘I should go. I know I’m distracting you.’ 

‘I’m honest enough to tell you if you’re being distracting. Trust me.’ U says. 

‘I’m going to go anyway,’ Alex turns towards the door. 

U doesn’t stop him, except to ask, ‘What’s your name?’ 

‘I’m,’ Alex thinks for a minute. ‘Alistair.’ Because it’s the truth.


	8. Q: A Favour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it says on the tin. 
> 
> (No warnings)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I don't know, please tell me I'm not the only one that finds it hilarious if James Bond lived in a Bond Street area flat? I can't help myself.

Sometimes, when Q watches Bond drink whisky (always straight, no ice) he has an itch. But he can’t. He doesn’t want to go back there. 

Bond’s new (well, no. It’s not new, he’s had this place for over a year now but it still looks barely lived in) flat is nearest to the Bond Street tube station and Q still thinks he did it on purpose. 

‘You didn’t have to come to me to deliver my new gun,’ says Bond. His back is to Q, because he’s pouring tea. Standing in Bond’s kitchen watching Bond pour him tea will never cease to be a surreal experience -- not that it’s happened too many times. ‘I would have come to you. Besides, what if you’d got caught with it?’ 

‘What, on the tube?’ Q snorts. ‘I drove here.’ He’s always careful to drive to Bond’s. Gives him an excuse not to drink. 

‘You’re not even licensed to carry,’ says Bond. 

Q is just going to ignore that, ‘Moneypenny says you get grumpy without new toys. Thought I’d waylay that, you should be more grateful.’ 

‘And you know better than to listen to her, clearly.’ Bond pauses to fetch a coaster before setting down a warm mug in front of Q. The coaster is new. 

Q raises an eyebrow, ‘Souvenir?’ Phnom Penh isn’t exactly known for coasters. 

‘They came with the flat. Set of four.’ 

Q doesn’t believe that, but he’ll let that go, ‘What are you doing Friday evening?’ 

‘Nothing really,’ Bond says. 

One might be surprised that 007 doesn’t have plans for a Friday evening, but Q knows Bond’s travel schedule like the back of his hand (if only for the sake of maintenance) and knows that Bond doesn’t really go anywhere when he’s in London. He prefers to rest. Bond will be off to Paris in a few days. 

‘Do you want to have dinner?’ 

‘Is this you asking me out on a date?’ 

Sometimes, when Q thinks that Bond isn’t looking, he does admire Bond’s shoulders and the way his face is lined. But any further than that...nothing. It absolutely has to be nothing. Of course not, ‘No, I mean. No.’ 

See, the thing is. Q is stuck. As of a day ago, he’s officially backed himself into a corner by agreeing to meet Danny and Scottie for dinner. This is the best solution that Q can come up with and it’s still got holes from here to Bombay. 

‘Then?’ 

‘Not everyone who asks you out to dinner wants to date you,’ Q points out. He’s not even too sure if Bond dates. ‘But I, erm.’ 

The plan is there in his head like a perfect blueprint, except for the asking part. Q has no idea how to ask. If he even should ask.

Bond says nothing and just waits. 

‘If I ever die working for MI6,’ Q says finally to the dark recesses of tea in his mug. ‘My brother Daniel gets notified of my death and he’ll inherit my things.’ 

Bond still doesn’t say anything.

‘I’ve agreed to meet him for dinner, but I’m beginning to think it’s a mistake.’ 

Q knows Bond’s file. He knows the files of most everyone in MI6. It’s part of the job, but it’s not part of Bond’s job, and Q can see the bits of surprise that show up in Bond’s face because he’s let his guard down. 

‘As long as you are careful and he doesn’t know about your job, then there is nothing wrong with meeting him for dinner, is there?’ 

‘He’s bringing his friend Scottie. I sometimes follow Scottie on CCTV cameras because I don’t like him. He’s ex-MI6.’ Q sucks in a deep breath. Maybe he’ll take up smoking in earnest. ‘Of course, I joined MI6 a long time after he’d been forced out, but I can’t have him make me. Daniel cannot know that I work for MI6.’

Bond thinks for a minute, ‘This Scottie. If I go in your stead, he’ll almost certainly know that I work for MI6. Won’t Daniel put the two and two together?’ 

‘You don’t have to say we work together. You can say I, I consulted.’ The corner of Q’s mouth quirks. ‘I technically do. Or you could say that you’re a friend. But then Daniel’s mind will go to us being,’ Q sighs. ‘That sort of friends. And he will possibly find you devastatingly attractive.’ Daniel may profess to love Alex and mourn him, but Q almost certainly knows how Daniel’s mind works. 

‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’ If anything, Bond sounds _amused_ and that’s never a good thing. Q wonders what that feels like, wallowing in the constant conviction that yes, yes he is devastatingly attractive. ‘This still sounds like you want to ask me out to dinner.’ 

‘Bond, I’m being serious.’ 

Maybe Bond just wants him to come out and say it, because now he looks less amused. ‘What’s this really about, Q?’ 

Q sighs. It looks like he doesn’t have a choice. 

‘It’s about the murder of Alexander Turner, also known as Alistair Turner. He worked as a codebreaker. I think you used one of his algorithms once when you were dismantling that virus in the power grid in Macau.’ 

‘I remember. I read about that on my way back from Heathrow,’ says Bond. ‘Seems to be a big news story. Something about a sex dungeon.’ 

Something about a sex dungeon. Right. If that’s the one detail that Bond remembers, maybe Mallory will have no trouble containing this whole thing after all. ‘Yes, that.’ 

‘Did you know Turner?’ 

Q had known Alex as Alistair and Alex in turn, had known him as U. ‘We started at around the same time. But that’s not important. Turner was Daniel’s partner. He’s convinced that Turner was murdered, and wants my help. He says between my work in securities and Scottie’s old connections in MI6...I know my brother, Bond. I just don’t want him to be doing anything stupid. And if he does, maybe you’ll be there nearby to stop him. Since I can’t be there.’ Q quashes the little niggling voice at the back of his head. No, it's not that he _won't_ ; he can't. He just can't. 

The itch grows worse, and the last of the whisky disappears into Bond’s throat. Q watches him swallow. 

Q takes in a long breath; he lets it out.

‘I have no right to ask this of you, and Mallory wants me to let him handle it, to leave it alone. But I can’t.’ 

For a long time, Bond doesn’t say anything. Then he takes Q’s empty mug of tea and refills the kettle. 

‘I’ll do it. But I pick the restaurant.’


	9. Bond: Two Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bond, Danny, and Scottie have dinner. And it is awkward.
> 
> (No warnings)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bond POV! I struggled with editing this, hence it's a bit late. Still, for what it is, I'm reasonably happy with it. Please enjoy!

Bond does not know Q very well. But he trusts Q implicitly and Q’s quick thinking and his much-improved foresight means that Bond doesn’t have to suffer 25 hours on a plane (not including layover) with the added inconvenience of broken ribs. One of the key aspects of doing well as a 00 Agent, Bond thinks is trust. Of course, it’s a very specific sort of trust, like trusting that a bullet will come out of his gun if he squeezes the trigger, or that a SOS will be triggered when he trips the appropriate alarm. 

He has the same sort of trust towards Q, but he doesn’t think Q trusts anything, or anyone. Maybe the key to working well as the integral part of Q-branch is distrust. To subscribe fully to Murphy’s Law, plan for every bad scenario. 

This is probably why it takes about five years for Q to tell him he’s got a brother who is -- was -- romantically involved with a now murdered MI6 codebreaker. 

Bond chooses to meet Q’s brother Daniel and Daniel’s friend Scottie at a restaurant in South Kensington. L’Etranger serves French-influenced Japanese food and he goes for that, because a.) he hasn’t been here in about seven months and misses it, and b.) He’s seen Q eat sushi a couple of times. The man is remarkably proficient with chopsticks. L’Etranger doesn’t exactly serve sushi, but maybe it’s something. 

He’s dressed in a casual lounge suit, but he wears a tie with a tie clip that isn’t exactly a tie clip. The tie clip will feed everything back to Q, who is presumably...somewhere. Maybe even close by. Bond had left Q behind in his flat, but the man could have been anywhere. 

Not too far away, he hears the Maitre d’ say, ‘Holt, party of three? Please, follow me.’ 

Q doesn’t ask him to wear a communicative wire, but maybe there’s a reason for that. The two other individuals who are ushered finally to Bond’s table are an older man, and a younger man wearing Q’s face exactly, but without the glasses. 

Q’s brother is his twin. Funny Q hasn’t mentioned it. Bond thinks everything makes sense. 

‘You must be Daniel,’ Bond stands. ‘My name is Bond. Q asked me to cover for him at the last minute. I think an emergency came up for him at work but he didn’t want to cancel on you.’ 

Daniel looks him up and down. ‘Q’s asked you to cover for him at the last minute,’ and there’s that same distrust again. The thing that tells Bond irrecoverably that they are brothers. ‘Do you even know Q’s real name?’ 

‘Danny,’ Scottie puts a hand on the younger man’s arm. ‘Surely that’s your empty stomach talking.’ Extending a hand towards Bond, he says, ‘And I’m Scottie.’

Does Daniel even know Scottie’s full name? Bond echoes the question in his mind, ‘The pleasure’s mine. Shall we order?’ 

Daniel looks uncertain, but after Scottie takes his seat, he too follows suit. Bond has the distinct feeling that Daniel is used to doing what Scottie tells him to do. Perhaps that is why Q dislikes him.

Now it’s Scottie who looks him up and down; Bond holds still, ‘...Do you come here often, Bond?’ 

‘I used to,’ says Bond. ‘When I still lived in the area. Now I travel for work, so I don’t come as often as I would like.’ He says every word, and imagines Q breathing his sharp disapproval. But Bond isn’t a 00 Agent for nothing. A waitress drops by to take their drink orders and since no one protests, Bond orders a bottle of Cheval Blanc. ‘I think Q and I ate here once.’ And that’s a lie. But Bond thinks Q might appreciate L’Etranger for what it purports to be. 

Bond watches as Danny picks up his cloth napkin, face barely hiding surprise as the napkin goes from a careful swan-shape back to a practical nothing. Then he spreads it across his lap once he’s made sure Scottie has done the same. ‘This does seem like the kind of restaurant my brother would like.’ He says the word over and over again, his _brother_ , like the word itself will protect him. 

‘Are you seeing each other and he’s just too embarrassed to tell me himself? Because he’s really got nothing to worry about.’ Daniel smiles at him, and it’s not a nice smile. Come to think about it, Bond can’t remember the last time Q has smiled. Q has two expressions set on opposite ends of a spectrum. On the one hand, there’s being smug. On the other, there’s being anxious. Neither of these emotional extremes really require him to smile. 

He’s probably anxious now. 

‘He thought you might say that,’ Bond shrugs. ‘But no. We’re not seeing each other.’ 

That’s a shame,’ Daniel says. The wine comes and their glasses fill. Daniel takes a sip of the wine, and Bond doesn’t think it suits him. ‘You’re fit, B -- my brother is blind if he can’t see that.’ 

What was it that Q had said to him in his kitchen -- _Daniel’s mind will go to us being that sort of friends. And he will possibly find you devastatingly attractive._

‘You can say his name,’ says Bond. ‘I know it.’ Well, he doesn’t. But he can ask Mallory or Moneypenny to pull a file. Anyone can pull a file. 

Daniel tries the wine again, and Bond doesn’t think the second sip agrees with him any more than the first. However, the wine seems to suit Scottie fine. ‘Do you? You looked surprised when you saw me.’ 

Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Maybe Daniel’s so desperate to find something, anything, that this is what he finds. ‘Q doesn’t talk about his family much. He mentioned a brother, but never did mention said brother was a twin.’ 

Scottie leans forward, as if to speak, and Bond notes the way Daniel withdraws into himself almost immediately. 

‘What exactly is the nature of your association with Q, Bond? I think Danny and I are both most keen to know. You sound like you work in security.’ Scottie’s guess sounds like a threat. 

‘I don’t,’ says Bond. He can tell Scottie doesn’t believe him, but where Bond clings to trust, he equally counts on distrust. ‘I used to work in customs. And now I get paid to travel and sleep in expensive hotels. Q’s my.’ 

Bond can see it now, Q’s eyes boring holes into his screen, not breathing, waiting for his answer. 

‘Nighbour,’ Bond finishes. ‘He locked himself out of his flat once when I was coming back home from New York, and there he was, sitting there. Said he lost his keys on a night out and was too embarrassed to call a locksmith.’

‘Was he drunk?’ says Daniel. And Bond gets the feeling that there’s a weight on that question. Q’s probably not breathing again. 

‘I don’t remember,’ Bond says. ‘He might have been. But I picked his lock for him, and he’s been grateful to me ever since.’ 

‘I went out with Q once,’ Daniel gets this look in his eye and Bond half watches that, while he watches more, how Scottie shifts slightly in his seat. ‘We were about sixteen and he wouldn’t even snog the girl that he liked.’ 

Bond tries to picture it, Q at sixteen not wanting to kiss a girl. He decides that he can’t. Or maybe he can. ‘Do you remember what she looks like?’

‘Don’t know,’ says Daniel. Bond suspects he isn’t exactly telling the truth. ‘Mousy, probably. I don’t understand Q’s taste.’ 

 

. . .

 

For dessert, Bond orders crème brulèe and he watches the way Danny and Scottie share a chocolate fondant. It’s Scottie’s idea -- he’d made a show of being full, and that too, is most likely on purpose. 

They even share one fork. 

‘There is something I don’t quite understand, Bond.’ Scottie says. 

This is the preamble Bond has been waiting for, for about the last two hours. ‘Ask. I’m an open book.’

‘If Q is the one who owes you, and if you’re not involved…’ Scottie meets his gaze and Bond does not move. ‘What are you doing here? You don’t strike me as the type to do favours for someone who is just a neighbour.’

‘I also consider Q a friend,’ says Bond. ‘And I don’t have any family. So it’s…’ It’s important to be vulnerable here. It’s important for him to trust them, for them to trust him. ‘It probably cost a lot for Q to ask me to come here today.’

And that, Bond knows, is the most truthful he’s been all evening. 

His confession seems to unlock something in Daniel, because he says, ‘Q and I sometimes go months without talking. I don’t think he’s ever been so worried about me. Do you know why, Bond? Or has Q already told you all about it?’

‘ _Danny,_ ’ Scottie’s voice is sharp, but it’s too late. Bond has the opening that he needs. 

Bond waits for a moment, ‘I read about it in the papers. Of course, Alex Turner’s partner remains unnamed, I assume, to protect your privacy. But you must understand why Q feels the need to reach out to you now. Sometimes, it’s impossible to understand why.’ It’s not front page news anymore because the news is fickle, but there are a few papers that still report on the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of one Alex Turner, bank analyst. One paper mentioned suicide. 

Daniel stares at him, ‘What the fuck does Q have over you?’ 

‘Excuse me?’ 

‘I told him it wasn’t fucking suicide,’ Daniel’s dam has been slowly cracking throughout dinner and Bond isn’t sure what it is exactly, but he’s breaking. ‘He agreed with me and wanted to help me, help us --’ as if Scottie will forget that Daniel is grateful. ‘And if he’s fucking backing out of it, he should at least have the fucking guts to --’ 

‘You are making a scene,’ says Scottie quietly. 

There are indeed people staring. A family of three is seated at the next table and the young mother is looking horrified. Her three-year-old is on his way to commanding a fine, colourful vocabulary. 

Daniel is still seething as he gets up from his chair, ‘If Q doesn’t want to fucking help me. He should have at least had the guts to tell me himself. I’m leaving.’ 

Daniel goes. His vacant chair nearly trips over a server carrying wineglasses and Scottie smiles apologetically. 

‘I should probably go after him.’ 

‘Yes,’ Bond nods. ‘Don’t worry about the bill.’ 

When he’s alone again, Bond looks down at his tie clip. 

‘I think that could have gone better.’


	10. Danny: Beloved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny and Q bury the hatchet, after a fashion.
> 
> (Warnings: none.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas and New Year's everyone! Sorry I have been slow but real life has been happening at about lightning speed. Updates might not be as frequent from now on but I'm still trucking on at about 35k, so stay tuned! I've been waiting to post this chapter for ages, so I do hope you enjoy!

Danny doesn’t know where he’s going, but he just wants to go somewhere. Far from the fancy restaurant, far from Boothroyd’s weird neighbour, far from -- just everything. _Everything._ His hands are shaking. His cigarette won’t light. 

‘Danny!’ It’s Scottie’s voice; he’s tempted to keep walking. But Danny stops. He can’t bear to turn around. ‘Danny, please stop.’ 

‘Next, you’re going to turn on me aren’t you? You’re going to tell me that yes, yes my boyfriend was a sadomasochistic freak and that he killed himself. Aren’t you, Scottie?’ 

Danny feels arms encircle him. Scottie is holding him tight, ‘Darling, I would never think that. Alex loved you, I think, as much as he was able. And I think that counts for something.’ 

He clings on. It’s like the whole world without Alex in it is threatening to drown him; it’s a monster haunting his every move. Waiting for him to make a mistake. He’s already made so many. He doesn’t even want to hear some of what Scottie’s just said. Danny just needs to hear that Scottie doesn’t think that. 

Scottie doesn’t think that. 

. . .

‘Can I sleep here?’ 

Danny has been sleeping on Scottie’s couch, but for some reason, he can’t bring himself to sleep there tonight. Scottie is already in bed in his dressing gown. He’s reading Andrew Marr’s _A History of the World_. It’s a book Boothroyd probably owns. 

Scottie looks at him over the rim of his reading glasses. 

‘Not for sex,’ Danny clarifies. ‘Just. I don’t want to sleep out there by myself.’ 

‘All right,’ Scottie nods. ‘Come here.’ 

Danny crawls under the duvet from the other side of the bed and Scottie settles a hand on top of his head like he’s a boy again. 

‘I would have liked to meet your brother,’ Scottie says. 

Danny snorts.

‘My gutless, useless brother. Fuck all good that Cambridge degree is doing him.’ 

Scottie’s hand leaves his hair to turn the page, ‘On the contrary, I think your brother would be very useful if he ever decides to cooperate with us. And that he’s acquired a very dangerous friend in Bond.’ 

Danny makes a sound into the pillow, ‘Boothroyd? Change his mind? He’s too stubborn.’ 

‘Not at all like someone else I know,’ Scottie’s fingers are back in his hair. It’s almost comforting having them there. ‘You didn’t call him Boothroyd once during dinner.’ Scottie says. 

‘Yeah, because I think Bond is weird.’ There’s still a part of Danny that thinks Bond is Boothroyd’s sugar daddy. That sort of thing makes sense, even if it doesn’t seem like Boothroyd. Danny doesn’t know what Boothroyd likes. ‘He didn’t even know Boothroyd’s name.’ 

‘But you’re the only one in the world that knows him as Boothroyd, aren’t you?’ 

‘Not that it does me any good.’ 

There is a slight thump as Scottie puts the book down. Then the lamp by the bed dims, and Danny doesn’t even mind when Scottie puts his arms around him. Because these touches are not a lie; they are real and they won’t go away. Danny presses a soft kiss to Scottie’s cheek. 

‘When he first got back in touch with me, Boothroyd changed, Scottie. He dressed better. Was sober. He was ever more quiet than before. He gave me money and asked me if I was still doing drugs. He wouldn’t tell me anything about what he was doing. Not where he lived, not where he worked. Nothing. I barely have a phone number for him.’ It’s a story Scottie has heard before. ‘Sometimes he’ll still disappear for months. It was six months before this.’ 

Scottie looks at him in the dark. He’s listening. 

‘...He only asked one thing of me,’ Danny’s shaking. He doesn’t know why tears are even coming now. He’s cried his share for Alex, and he hasn’t had Boothroyd for a long time. ‘He asked me -- he asked me to never call him by his name again. To call him Q now and never tell a soul. Made it seem like it was a matter of life or death.’ 

‘Why did you tell me your brother’s name is Boothroyd? I’m someone.’

‘You are someone,’ says Danny. ‘You’re my only friend.’ 

. . .

It occurs to Danny only later, after Scottie has fallen asleep next to him, that he hadn’t asked why Scottie thought Bond was dangerous. 

Very carefully, Danny extracts himself from Scottie’s arms and his duvet. He finds his cigarettes in the dark and pulls on his jacket. 

Boothroyd is in Danny’s mobile contacts as B. It’s how he used to sign his letters. 

Boothroyd doesn’t pick up. Danny rings him two more times until he finally does. 

‘Daniel, it’s nearly two in the morning.’ Boothroyd does sound like he’s sort of just woken up, but Danny refuses to feel guilty. 

‘I thought I’d catch you before you had another work emergency and disappeared for another six months.’ Danny says. 

‘It’s not like that.’ Boothroyd says like clockwork. ‘Did you have a nice dinner with Bond? I meant to come. I really did, but work...well. I’m sorry, Daniel.’ 

‘I know, your sugar daddy told me. He also told Scottie and me a very clever story about the two of you being neighbours.’ Danny draws a too-long inhale from his cigarette and almost chokes. This almost never happens. 

Danny feels sick, he wants to throw up. 

‘Not one of my finer moments,’ says Boothroyd. ‘Bond has never let me forget it. But your guess couldn’t be further from the truth. Bond is never in town.’ 

_Were you drunk?_ Danny wants to ask, but he holds his tongue. 

‘International booty call,’ Danny says instead. ‘I hear it’s all the rage.’ 

‘Weren’t you mad at me?’ 

‘I’m furious,’ Danny agrees. He watches as the bits of ash fall from the end of cigarette to light up the muddy dirt just under Scottie’s porch. ‘Everytime I ask you a question, you fucking lie. Or you disappear. Or you send a devastatingly handsome man in a suit and a gold tie clip to convince me that Alex killed himself. I don’t know what supposed to do, Boothroyd. So we’ll shoot the shit. We’ll talk bollocks about Bond being your sugar daddy because that’s funny and it doesn’t matter if we fight over that.’ 

Danny is tired of fighting with Boothroyd. 

‘I’m really sorry,’ Boothroyd says. 

‘So am I.’ 

‘Where are you now?’ 

‘Scottie’s porch.’

Boothroyd makes a displeased noise, ‘And Scottie?’

‘Asleep.’ Danny lights another cigarette. ‘Do you own any books by Andrew Marr?’ 

‘Sure,’ Boothroyd sounds surprised. ‘ _A History of the World_ , _Tools for Peace_ , several others.’ 

‘Scottie was reading him before bed tonight, maybe I’ll skim it.’ 

‘He is interesting.’ 

_He’s interesting_. Like nothing’s wrong, like everything will eventually right itself again. 

‘If you won’t help me, Boothroyd. I’m going to the papers. I’m going tomorrow. I’m going to tell them the truth, that Alex didn’t commit suicide. He was _happy_ with me. You’ve never loved anyone Boothroyd. This is the one thing that I know. That you might not ever.’ 

Boothroyd stops breathing for a long time on the other end. It’s such a long pause, that Danny starts to count the seconds. 

‘ -- I love you, Daniel.’ Boothroyd says. ‘I’m shit at it, maybe because you’re right. I’ll never love a person like you love the person you think is your soulmate. But this doesn’t diminish the fact that I love you.’ 

Before Danny can say anything, Boothroyd has hung up.


	11. Q: Icarus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing changes
> 
> (Warnings: the usual)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this is late! I hope everyone had a happy new year. Barring unseen catastrophe I'll now attempt to update every week or so!
> 
> The German that Q quotes from is from Rainer Maria Rilke's _Duineser Elegien_ (1923).

University is everything Boothroyd has ever dreamed about from their paltry flat in Bexley, and maybe more. Cambridge has got everything he’s ever wanted. Vast quiet libraries, people who are just a bit odd like him. He finds immediate friends in Clarence, a second year who reads philosophy; Steve, whose father is a MP; and finally the twin socialites Lydia and Catherine. He introduces himself meekly as Joe Holt and they eagerly take him under their wing. 

Of course, they’re all thrilled to learn that ‘Joe’ has an identical twin. Imagine that, they’ll look exactly the same. They all can’t wait to meet Daniel. 

‘Will you hate us if we call him Danny?’ says Lydia, bright and mischievous.

‘No, but that’s not even his name,’ Boothroyd rolls his eyes.

. . .

Daniel believes in love. He always has, but Boothroyd thinks that his brother has gone and spectacularly messed it up. Sex and love. Daniel chases after both and finds probably only one of those things. And sometimes, he doesn’t even find either.

‘I love Lloyd Wythcombe,’ he’d said, in a fit of young, heated passion. Daniel had said some other things too, but Boothroyd just worries that there’ll be come on the teacher’s desk for a very long time. He doesn’t hear the rest. 

Maybe Daniel did love Lloyd, maybe he didn’t, but three months later, his brother and Lloyd never did speak again.

. . .

Their parents don’t love them. Boothroyd thinks they barely love each other. That’s the beginning of their disease, and it grows with them.

When his mother dies, his father buys a bottle of cheap Jameson’s. Daniel comes home smelling of cigarette smoke. 

Boothroyd walks to the spot where his mother was hit by a bus. He curses her and curses her. In English, in German, which he’s supposed to be learning in school. He’s not so good at it. 

_Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?_

Nothing changes.

. . .

One weekend, Lydia and Catherine get tickets to _Moulin Rouge_ and Clarence and Steve both balk immediately at the thought of seeing a romantic movie.

But Boothroyd says, ‘I’ll go.’ He has practically no memory of going to the cinema, but once Jacob had taken them to a movie and in the end, Boothroyd and Danny had to find him in the pub just to drag him home. 

This isn’t like that. _Moulin Rouge_ ends up being a very girly movie. Catherine’s brought her boyfriend, a rugby player from St. John’s, which means it feels like Boothroyd is sort of on a date with Lydia, though he’s never really asked her. She cries at the end when Satine dies and Boothroyd hands her some tissues. 

‘Do you always carry tissues, Joey?’ Lydia laughs as she blows her nose. 

‘I looked up the ending,’ Boothroyd confesses. ‘Thought you might cry.’ 

When he walks her home that night, Lydia gives him a kiss. It’s his first kiss, and when he wakes up in the morning, Boothroyd has still got a bit of lipstick clinging to his upper lip. This is what love is, he thinks. It’s not like what Daniel finds on top of the teacher’s desk. 

He’s never felt so alone. Love is probably not supposed to feel this way.

. . .

Boothroyd shouldn’t have written to Daniel about a girlfriend thing. But the truth is, even though he’s lonely holding Lydia’s hand, he’s happy, and he wants Daniel to know it too, how love could be. But when it comes time to share the big news, all Boothroyd can manage is, ‘Well then, Lydia.’ As if it’s not anything.

And maybe it isn’t, in the grand scheme of things. 

‘What do you mean ‘well then, Lydia?’ This isn’t a game show.’ 

That probably should have come out better (and not all over the court). 

 

Near the end of Easter term, Steve gets sent down for drugs. From this, Boothroyd easily deduces that Steve has probably given Daniel drugs too, when he’s came to visit, which neither Steve nor Daniel deny. 

He nearly socks Steve in the face. But then Boothroyd remembers, that unlike the College Principal, he has the choice not to be waiting for Steve’s father for send him an angry letter on some sort of Parliament letterhead. So instead, he takes Lydia’s cellar key and helps himself to a bottle of Chardonnay. Wine isn’t whisky, so it’s not the same. He even knows the password to the till, so he leaves five pounds. If they ever discover any inventory missing, it will even out if they count carefully. 

When did he and Daniel become like this? It’s probably because they’d had the cruelest misfortune to be born to small monsters. Of course Boothroyd doesn’t believe in karma, in any sort of predestination, but he does hold genetics to be a near holy cause and from there they’ve drawn a bad lot. It doesn’t matter if Boothroyd is clever. It doesn’t matter if Daniel doesn’t know what’s good for him and doesn’t want to go to university. None of it matters. 

Boothroyd is careful to pour wine quietly when his glass empties. Daniel doesn’t hear, but still, his brother still asks him if he’s drunk. He’s got no right. Especially if he takes drugs. Boothroyd can’t fix himself. He knows that already; he’s known it for a very long time, because clever minds are the worst for that. He tries to fix Daniel in return, but Daniel won’t let him. He’s too stubborn. 

In the end, Boothroyd says, ‘I’ll end up like Dad, one day. And I know you’ll probably end up like Mother. I know about you and Steve.’ 

He’s broken the pact of silence. But that’s all right, because they’ve done so together. Daniel thinks there isn’t enough alcohol for both Boothroyd and Jacob in the house. And then the way Daniel _laughs_. It sends chills up Boothroyd’s spine. 

‘Daniel.’ _Don’t do anything daft, please._

‘I don’t really feel like talking to you. If all you’re going to do is fucking lie to me.’ 

‘I wasn’t lying about Steve being sent down.’ He tells the truth when he ought to. 

Daniel isn’t impressed, ‘That’s the truth about someone else. You never tell the truth about yourself.’ 

‘I don’t see how that’s important,’ Boothroyd says. It may be true, but it isn’t important. 

Daniel sucks in a sharp breath, ‘I’ve never lied to you. If you never are honest with me, then it means you don’t trust me.’

‘I’m trying to protect you, Daniel. That’s the only thing dishonesty is good for.’ Because he can. He can protect Daniel. He can protect him from the fact that love doesn’t exist, that drugs will make him unhappy, and that everything in the world is a monster waiting to be born. It’s why he’s sent Daniel some lines of Elizabeth Smart copied at the end of his last letter. Maybe Daniel would have enjoyed the poetry, except he doesn’t. 

‘Yeah, and what are you trying to protect me from? Monsters under my bed?’ 

‘How about from the monsters we’re both becoming?’ 

There’s a long dead silence on the other end, ‘I need to go.’ 

Daniel can’t even face the truth. See, that’s why Boothroyd lies to him.

. . .

Boothroyd’s work in his course is the only thing that keeps him happy. Or he’s not even happy about it really. He can just get programmes and codes to do what he tells them to do and it seems to make everyone happy. So Boothroyd is happy too. His tutor tells him that he will no doubt land a great job when he graduates. Maybe even MI6.

MI6! The life of a spy! Of course he’ll probably never shoot a gun with his eyesight, but maybe Boothroyd will be happy. 

He manages to go to his tutorials sober, but Boothroyd doesn’t quite manage that the rest of the time. He has to hide a bottle of half-empty port while Lydia comes to his room and breaks up with him. She’s not crying, but her eyes are glistening like she’s in a movie. Like Satine in _Moulin Rouge_. Boothroyd doesn’t have any tissues.

‘Joey,’ she says. ‘I love you. But I don’t feel like I can go where you go. It’s like you’re on an island all by yourself.’ 

Now is his chance. Boothroyd can prove to her that he isn’t an island. But instead, he says, ‘You’re probably right. I’m Icarus. Eventually I’m going to be burned by the sun. So maybe you shouldn’t come with me.’ 

Then he says, ‘I’m sorry. That seems like an unkind thing to say. You can hit me if you’d like.’ 

‘Oh, no Joey. I couldn’t hit you. But I’m so sorry.’ She lifts up on her toes and kisses him primly on the forehead. ‘I’m sorry.’ 

If she’d only mentioned the cellar key, maybe she could have saved him.


	12. Danny: The Truth is Out There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He and Boothroyd are brothers, twins. Danny still doesn’t know what that really means most of the time. He doesn’t think they’re friends, and certainly they are not lovers, but they are _something_.
> 
> Warnings: brief mention of homophobia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got something almost resembling an ending for this! Just thought I would let you guys know. Thanks for reading and sticking with me :).

‘I heard you get up last night,’ says Scottie. ‘Are you all right?’ 

Danny is standing in Scottie’s kitchen making them both eggs on toast in a pan. This gives him all the excuse that he needs, to keep staring at the crisping edges of the egg whites. 

_‘ -- Maybe because you’re right. I’ll never love a person like you love the person you think is your soulmate. But this doesn’t diminish the fact that I love you.’_

Danny had spent eight months with Alex, the longest he has ever been with anyone. The most complete he had ever been. Yet if he truly takes a moment to think about it, not once during those eight months, had Alex said that he loved Danny of his own accord. He'd never said it first. Danny used to always have to say it first; then, Alex would look slightly bewildered like a deer in the headlights and then he’d dutifully echo Danny after a kiss. 

_I love you too._

He and Boothroyd are brothers, twins. Danny still doesn’t know what that really means most of the time. He doesn’t think they’re friends, and certainly they are not lovers, but they are _something_. Boothroyd hadn’t waited for Daniel to say it back either. He’d simply hung up the phone. 

Danny can try to convince himself that the only reason Boothroyd said he loved him is because there’s no way Boothroyd understands. Boothroyd has never loved anyone. So it’s easy for him to say that he loves Danny. He has no idea what it means. 

But that’s not true either. Boothroyd has been telling him the truth all along. 

'Danny?'

A strangled sort of sound escapes from Danny’s throat. It sounds (and feels) like someone is trying to tear out his vocal chords. 

‘Danny, the eggs are burning,’ Scottie reaches past him to turn off the stove. ‘Danny?’ 

‘I am such an idiot,’ says Danny, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Do you have any siblings, Scottie? I don’t think I’ve ever asked you.’ 

‘I had a sister,’ Scottie says after a brief pause. ‘She washed her hands of me when she found out I was a homosexual. She never did manage, but when she was young, she’d wanted to become a nun. In some respects, I think you are very lucky.’ He hands Danny a clean dishtowel. ‘Here, blow your nose.’ 

Danny does, ‘I am sorry I burnt the eggs.’

‘Oh, that doesn’t matter.’

. . .

They have toast with blackcurrant jam in the sitting room in absolute silence. The quiet is so pristine you could hear a pin drop. And drop it Scottie does.

‘Danny, I feel that it is my duty to warn you about Boothroyd’s neighbour, Bond. Since I am your friend.’ 

Danny says, ‘What do you mean?’ 

‘I think he works for MI6.’ Scottie says, ‘It’s the way he watched, you see. Operatives are trained to see everything. All you had to do was look into his eyes.’ 

‘Oh.’ 

And now Scottie is looking at him so intensely that Danny flinches under the weight of his gaze, as if it wants to suck out his entire soul. Maybe this is what Scottie means by watching, ‘...I’m going to ask you something Daniel, and I won’t ask you again. But I need you to tell me the truth.’ 

‘Okay. Okay.’

Anything to get him to stop staring like that. Anything at all. 

‘Do you swear on your life that you took nothing from Alex’s apartment?’ 

Danny has to think about it for a split second. Between trying to convince people that Alex didn’t die by suicide this week, Bond, Boothroyd, everything else, he hasn’t actually had much time to think about the cylinder. He means to tell Scottie, of course, but now is clearly not the right time. 

‘Of course,’ says Danny. ‘Nothing. I swear on my life.’

. . .

Sara, who also lives in Danny’s Vauxhall flat has a friend who is a journalist. She gives Danny her number and after texting said number his details and his story, she for some reason decides he isn’t just some crazy bloke with a story so she invites him to come in to the office. It doesn’t get any better from there. She must think he’s some kind of pauper or an idiot for not wanting money. Everyone wants money.

But she moves on. 

‘The popular theory right now, accepted by many of the major papers is that Alex Turner, the man who you know as your partner --’

Quickly, Danny corrects her, ‘I don’t just know him as my partner. He _was_ my partner.’ 

She gives him a look, but then backtracks and corrects himself. ‘Fine, the current theory regarding Alex’s death, the death of your partner, is that he committed suicide.’ 

‘And I’m telling you that’s not the truth!’ says Danny. ‘I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, he wouldn’t just have left me.’ 

‘Then what is the truth?’ She looks at him steadily. 

‘He was murdered,’ Danny blinks hard. ‘Someone killed him.’ 

She sighs, ‘Not too long ago, Danny, you were the principal suspect in the murder investigation into his death, weren’t you?’ She doesn’t sound unkind, only reasonable, and Danny despises her for it. ‘One would think you’d be relieved not to be a suspect.’ 

‘I am,’ Danny nods vigorously to illustrate his point. ‘I am relieved! But if I am right about Alex being murdered, think about how angry I am that someone is out there walking free even if he’s taken a human life?’ 

‘I would like to believe you, Danny. I really would.’ She sighs and puts down her pen. ‘But life isn’t a long poem. Nothing that you give me is suitable for print. It’s a lot of anger, lots of speculation. You have no evidence. You can’t even prove the sex dungeon in his flat wasn’t his.’ 

‘I was his first,’ Danny says. ‘His very first. I could tell by the way his body moved, he. Alex couldn’t have possibly owned that sort of equipment. It’s absurd.’ 

She stands, ‘It is also possible, that he was a very good liar and you saw what you wanted to see. You felt what you wanted to feel.’ She slides a card across the table. ‘The truth is out there, Danny. Even if it’s not what you want it to be, I hope you find it and call me.’ 

The name on her business card is Catherine Smythe. She’s saved in his mobile as ‘Cathy’ because that’s the name Sara has given him. 

‘Ms. Smythe, wait.’ 

‘Mrs.’ She says and yes, she’s wearing a ring. ‘Yes?’ 

‘Do I look familiar to you, at all?’ 

Catherine studies him for a long minute, Maybe there’s almost a twitch in her expression, or maybe Danny’s so hopeful he’s made it up. He's been making up a lot of things, according to a lot of people. Finally, she shakes her head, ‘No. I’m sorry, Danny.’ For a moment, she starts back towards him as if she does in fact, hold the secrets that will make him whole again. Then she stops, ‘Please, don’t hesitate to call me.’


	13. Alex: Normal (Interlude II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Do you believe that you are living a normal life, Alistair?' 
> 
> (No warnings; except the part where I admit I'm so not a philosopher...)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, apologies for the late update but I've got a job! Consider this my attempt at failing to ship Q/Alex, if you will haha. Please enjoy!

The second time Alex goes to visit U (or rather, Q-branch), he’s not on his lunch but on official business. They’ve tasked him with running an algorithm down there. It’s hard for Alex to believe sometimes that just five gigabytes of numbers strung together in a certain way, when fed into the right kind of machine, or the right kind of human mind, that it’ll save lives everywhere. 

He’s not directly responsible for the completion of this particular algorithm, there are others in the department who have been there for years and years, even decades. They all have better things to do than ride the lift down to the basement. 

This time, Q-branch is busy. There aren’t many people, and the maths are simple. If U is Q-branch’s last hire, then it speaks to reason that Q-branch proper is comprised of five people. Q, R, S, T, and finally U. 

‘I’m trying to find Q,’ Alex says to a man who isn’t U. The man’s glasses look so heavy they might fall off his face at any minute. ‘I’ve an algorithm for him.’

‘He’s in the throne room,’ the man gestures towards an alcove affixed to the left side of the room, clutching the bridge of his nose for dear life. ‘He’s not going to be happy that you’re so late with it.’ 

Alex goes to the alcove and finds a man settled in a thronelike chair surrounded by buzzing screens. Security feeds. King’s Cross, Charles de Gaulle. some other places he doesn’t recognise. 

‘Don’t just stand there behind me.’ 

_Please don’t stand behind me._

Alex is typically not so brazen. In fact, he wonders if he’s going to get fired for shooting his mouth off to the head of Q-branch. But before he finishes processing the thought in his mind, the words slips out anyway: 

‘You could turn your chair around, sir. That way I won’t be in the way of the screens.’ 

He’s been a cog in the MI6 machine for the past three months, and what Alex has learned (because everyone has to learn fast at MI6) is that everyone becomes just a little less inscrutable when you annoy them. What is delicate here is a matter of balance. 

The chair swivels around and Q eyes him up and down. Q is about sixty years old, and he seems to have all the humour wrung out of him. What remains could have been considered a brave impersonation of a recently soured lemon. No wonder U doesn’t want to lunch with them. 

‘This is Comstock’s algorithm?’ 

‘Yes, sir.’ Alex hands over the stick. 

‘He’s late with it.’ 

‘I think he’s had the flu,’ Alex says. Along with learning fast, he sometimes has to say things to get by. This is arguably the part of his job he likes the least. ‘Whatever the case, I was told to voice my apologies.’ 

‘Fine.’ 

Q turns away from him and presses a button on the massive keyboard in front of him. A few moments later, a figure in a familiar cardigan appears. Alex blinks in mild surprise, how Pavlovian. 

‘...Alistair.’ 

‘Hello, U.’ U remembers his name. The thought leaves a warm spot. 

Their exchange seems to entirely pass Q by. Q just swivels around and passes U the stick. 

‘I want this implanted in the Sierra Device in the next 24 hours.’ 

Alex thinks U hasn’t seen sunlight or sleep in at least the last couple of days. He himself often doesn’t see either of those things either, but at least Alex has the choice. 

'But I haven't --' 

'24 hours,' says Q. 'Now.' 

‘24 hours,’ says U. ‘Right.’

. . .

It’s about eight in the evening when Alex wraps up his own work. There are always those who choose to work later, but Alex equally chooses not to be one of those people. He walks three blocks and grabs dinner at a quiet bistro. They employ a pianist on weeknights until late and Alex enjoys listening to him play.

He wraps up an extra warm sandwich along with a trifle pudding and lets his feet carry him back to the building like he’s wound on automated time. He takes the lift down, and finds Q-branch empty again. 

However, there are a couple of jackets still strewn about, so maybe people are just on their dinner breaks again. 

U’s voice doesn’t berate him for entering this time. The reason why Alex finds, is because he’s asleep. His glasses are on top of his head. The screen nearest to him says something is 21 percent complete. 

‘Hey,’ Alex puts his hand on U’s shoulder. 

U jerks awake with such a rush of violence that Alex hastily steps away to the side. ‘I was just.’ 

‘It’s just me,’ Alex says. ‘Alistair.’ 

‘I thought you were R.’ U rubs his eyes and puts his glasses back on. ‘He likes to play overseer when Q’s not here and I don’t find it particularly productive.’ Having settled himself again, he returns his gaze to Alex, who suddenly finds himself feeling a bit self-conscious.

‘What are you doing here?’ 

‘I,’ Alex stops. ‘I bought you a sandwich, and a trifle. I thought because you didn’t go to lunch the last time I saw you...did you sort out the mobile?’ 

‘Alistair, you haven’t seen me in three months. Of course I have eaten since then,’ U sounds amused. ‘But thank you, I appreciate the gesture. And yes, the mobile contained valuable information that resolved a small crisis in Kuwait.’ U unwraps the sandwich, and then he pauses. 

‘It’s only tomato and mozzarella,’ says Alex. ‘Sorry. I didn’t know if you were vegetarian.’ 

‘I’m not,’ U says. ‘But do you want some money? I could pay you back.’ 

‘What? No, no.’ Alex shakes his head. ‘Please, eat.’ 

‘You have the nerve to say that to me as if you eat three square meals a day.’ 

‘I do,’ says Alex. ‘I also jog regularly, every morning before work. Health is important.’

U laughs. 

‘It’s good,’ he says. ‘This job doesn’t seem to consume you. It seems to consume most people. You exercise, you eat.’ 

Alex looks around for a chair and finally settles for pulling one from the next desk over, ‘These are quite normal things that a person should be doing, aren’t they, U?’ 

U chews a bit of the sandwich, ‘Do you believe you are living a normal life, Alistair? Even with what we do for a living?’ 

‘You’re the one that’s told me that the Q-branch doesn’t manufacture killer lasers,’ Alex says dryly. ‘Even if it’s not normal, isn’t it at least arbitrary?’ 

‘Arbitrary?’ 

‘Our jobs are predicated on the existence of lies; you can say what you'd like about lies but most of the time they don't mean much,’ Alex says. He doesn’t know why he’s telling this to U, a man who he has only met once. But he thinks that he’s already seen U at his most honest and vulnerable, although the man would probably beg to differ. By the looks of it, U would like to think of himself as a dishonest man, but people who are alone are the most honest.)

They’ve got no one to lie to, for starters. No cause of dishonesty to start with.

‘That’s not to say I am unhappy with it,’ Alex adds quickly. ‘I accept this is how things are even if I don’t like it. How things probably will be for a long time. But we deal with lies every day. Random lies. Untruths that others have planted in our paths to trip us up. See, arbitrary.’ 

U doesn’t look convinced.

‘We need lies to live,’ he says. ‘We are nothing without our secrets.’

‘We can have secrets,’ Alex nods. ‘But we don’t have to have lies.’ 

‘What’s the difference?’ U gives him a stark look, and suddenly Alex gets the distinct feeling that he’s a boy in school again about to get told off. ‘And what you just said. You’re not unhappy but you don’t like it. That would imply that you are not happy.’ 

How is it possible, Alex thinks, that this one man can reveal to him in so few words that he’s lonelier than he’s ever been? 

‘You miss my point,’ says Alex. ‘I’m saying, without the arbitrariness of lies and untruth, you and I wouldn’t even have jobs, U. If there were only truths. That’s why I try to do normal things. I’m a normal person. Normalcy doesn’t depend on things being arbitrary. Things just are.’ 

Alex is not sure who he is trying to convince. 

U opens his mouth to say something, but something beeps.

‘If it makes you feel any better, yes Alistair. You are a normal person. Some might even call you a miracle.’ U turns his back to him. ‘You need to go. R is coming back soon and I’ll be in trouble if he finds you here.’ 

Alex stands, ‘Please tell me your real name.’ 

U has to think about this, which means it’s going to be a lie, whatever comes out of his mouth. ‘I’m Joe. It's the name M has on file. Please go, Alistair.’


	14. Q: Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Ask me anything and I’ll tell you the truth.’ (Q and Bond...well, bond, sort of.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for a late update; work's been hellish, but thanks for sticking with me!

‘Come to bed,’ says Bond. ‘I don’t even mean that in a biblical sense. The guest bedroom has fresh sheets.’

Q has watched Bond’s dinner with Daniel and Scottie at L’etranger seventeen times now. Not including the actual dinner itself. Every time he rewinds the footage, he finds something else to add to the disaster. It’s like a trainwreck that he can watch over and over and over again. 

‘Have you hired a cleaner? That’s not safe, is it?’ 

‘Don’t be an idiot, Q.’ Bond is standing directly behind him now. Q can see his reflection on the screen and he can smell the whisky on Bond’s breath. Granted, it’s very nice whisky. ‘I can change my own sheets. Watching it for the eighteenth time won’t change a word. Trust me.’ 

‘You’ve been counting?’ 

‘I’m observant.’ 

Q turns away from the screen and looks up at Bond. He thinks of taking Bond’s hand. Asking for some whisky. Some peace and relief. ‘Why aren’t you mad at me?’

‘Because I’m not your brother,’ Bond shrugs. ‘I don’t expect anything of you other than what you are. But I meant what I said at the end. That it could have gone better.’ 

‘If I had told you the truth,’ Q says, massaging his temples. ‘If you hadn’t gone in blind.’ 

‘Hazard of the job,’ says Bond. ‘Do you remember what they sent me in with to North Korea?’ 

Q winces. 

‘Can I get you anything?’ 

Q hesitates, ‘...Whisky, please?’ 

‘So you do drink,’ Bond moves away towards the kitchen. ‘Neat?’

‘Fine.’ 

Bond returns and hands him a whisky glass filled halfway. Just the smell makes Q dizzy. 

‘I lied, I’m going to throw up.’ 

‘You know where the toilet is.’ 

Q makes a run for Bond’s bathroom and grips the rim of the toilet. He heaves, and throws up the two cups of tea he’s had in the last hour, probably. 

A knock sounds on the door, ‘What did you have for dinner?’ 

‘I don’t think I ate,’ Q says, staring down at the watery contents in the toilet to make sure. No, he hasn’t eaten. 

‘Then I brought you some food,’ says Bond. ‘It’s in the fridge.’ 

‘You’re just telling me this now,’ Q flushes the toilet and washes his hands. When he opens the door again, Bond is sipping at the whisky. 

‘I figure I’d stack my chances at having leftovers.’

That is such a normal person thing to say.

‘You’re a bastard,’ Q tries to get past him back to the study but Bond is in the way. ‘Please move.’ 

‘You’re not going to watch the dinner again. It’s just made you throw up.’ 

Q looks away, ‘No, that was the smell of the whisky.’ 

Bond weighs his whisky in his hand as if considering a point. There’s a moment, and then he throws back the rest of the whisky. ‘Ask me about it. I was actually there.’ 

Q inhales deeply, ‘Scottie. He made you, didn’t he? He didn’t buy the story about us being neighbours.’ 

‘I don’t think anyone did. This is where more information could have been helpful.’ Bond takes his arm and manhandles him into the guest room. ‘I went with what I had.’ 

‘It was pretty good up until you said I lost my keys on a night out.’ 

‘You don’t go out?’ Bond raises one eyebrow. 

‘I don’t lose my keys on a night out,’ Q sits down on the edge of the bed. The sheets are clean. ‘I should drive home.’ 

‘I would let you but I think you’re going to drive straight to the nearest Queen’s Head.’ Bond says. ‘But yeah, I would say he made me. And vice versa. Would it have happened any differently if I said we were intimate?’ 

Intimate. Q thinks that he can ask for Bond to touch him. And then he would forget, fall into a cliche. Just for a moment, (really, about five seconds) be like everyone else.

(Like Daniel on top of the teacher’s desk.)

Be _normal_. 

‘You would have had to lie about our sex life,’ Q smiles sideways. ‘Daniel has been asking me about my sex life since we were about sixteen. He would have pounced. Hankered after every juicy morsel you deign fit to give him.’ 

Bond laughs, ‘Q is unbelievably bossy in bed. It makes him hard just hearing me name all the parts of my Walther PPK down to the last screw.’ 

Q snorts, but he can feel himself going a bit red in the dark. ‘Your Walther PPK doesn’t have any screws.’ But Bond knows this, too. 

‘Good night, Q.’

. . .

Bond is really not angry at him. He’s not angry at Q for wasting his Friday night telling ludicrous lies about how he and Q are _neighbours_. It’s because Bond expects nothing of him other than what he is. And what Q is is a dishonest, useless, gutless fucking _coward_.

He doesn’t even know why he’s picked up Daniel’s call. He could have left it until morning, until a month from now, when Daniel probably would have given up. 

(Killed himself, even.)

All Q can say is, ‘I’m really sorry.’

‘So am I.’ 

He’s surprised when Daniel asks him about Andrew Marr. But Q’s stomach sinks when he realises it’s Scottie who reads Andrew Marr before bed. Q hopes they aren’t fucking. Still, maybe it will be a good thing if Daniel reads some Andrew Marr. Maybe Daniel will finally go to university, realise that he is perfectly clever and that he won’t need Scottie or Alistair (or his brother, even) to be clever for him. 

Then Daniel says, ‘If you won’t help me, Boothroyd. I’m going to the papers. I’m going tomorrow. I’m going to tell them the truth, that Alex didn’t commit suicide. He was _happy_ with me. You’ve never loved anyone Boothroyd. This is the one thing that I know. That you might not ever.’ 

Fear and bile well up in his throat. This is the thing with Daniel, yet another thing that’s never going to change. He always expects love to do so much. 

When in reality, love isn’t anything. Love is a lie. It won’t save you the way you expect it to like a well-thought out SOS. But to Daniel, love is everything all at once. It’s exactly incomprehensible in the way Q hates. 

‘I love you, Daniel.’ Q says, his throat already tight. He’s run out of words, ‘I’m shit at it, maybe because you’re right. I’ll never love a person like you love the person you think is your soulmate. But this doesn’t diminish the fact that I love you.’ 

When Q hangs up, he can’t breathe.

. . .

It’s well past two in the morning, but Q goes to Bond’s room. The door is left partially open and he peeks inside.

‘You can come in,’ says Bond’s voice somewhere in the dark.

‘I feel sick,’ Q leans against the doorframe. ‘Did I wake you?’ 

‘Time difference,’ says Bond. ‘I forgot to ask Medical for some sleeping pills. You’re not allowed anywhere near the bed if you’re going to throw up again.’ 

Q gets into the bed. The bed is big enough that he doesn’t have to touch Bond. 

‘Ask me.’ He regrets it the moment the words leave his mouth, but they echo in the room. Heavy and present. Too present. 

‘Ask you?’

‘Yeah.’ Q turns to his side, ‘Ask me anything and I’ll tell you the truth.’ 

‘When you were sixteen,’ says Bond. He doesn’t even think about it. ‘Did you ever kiss her?’ 

Funny, that Bond doesn’t ask him about his name. Bond himself also has many, so maybe that’s why it doesn’t matter. 

‘She was my girlfriend at the time,’ Q says. ‘So yeah. But not in front of Daniel. No. I always lie to him. Every fucking time. He thinks I don’t trust him and that I.’ The panic is bubbling up in his chest again. 

‘I’m going to touch you,’ says Bond. He reaches for Q and pulls him against his chest. Q has to wonder, if anyone does this for Bond when he needs it. (Bond must need it.) He’s probably got no shortage of people. 

‘He’s going to the papers. He won’t find anything, but I promised Mallory. I promised Mallory Daniel won’t make any trouble.’ Q grips Bond’s wrists. Any moment now, Bond will let go of him and Q will be left to drown. ‘It’s all my fault.’ 

‘You know not to think that way.’ Bond says. He doesn’t let go, not even when Q finally closes his eyes and drifts off to an uneasy sleep.


	15. Bond: Point Blank

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond is a crap kidnapper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still trucking on slowly, but the once a month updates are fairly manageable for me, so I hope that works for everyone too! Thanks for reading and leaving such lovely kudos and comments! 
> 
> As a side note, I do live in the UK but I'm not a Londoner and I apologise profusely if I've completely cocked up Bexley...

‘I need a file,’ says Bond to Eve Moneypenny. In exchange for the file of one Daniel Edward Holt, he hands over Moneypenny’s poison of choice, a large dirty Chai latte with three shots of espresso. ‘And you’re going to fry your nerves drinking that.’ 

‘You try keeping up with filing with two shots of espresso; it’s so not my job to play at being an _Übermensch_ ,’ Moneypenny shoots back. ‘Why is everyone so interested in Q’s brother all of the sudden? This file hasn’t left M’s office all week. You’re welcome.’ 

Bond mostly ignores her and scans the file, ‘Has M told you anything?’ 

‘No,’ Moneypenny says. ‘But he’s been making a lot of frantic calls to Amsterdam. Which you didn’t hear from me.’

. . .

Bond is used to walking the streets of London thinking that a bullet is going to pierce his shoulder, or that an IED is going to explode the tires of his Aston Martin while he’s trying not to run over tourists in Westminster. It’s all the same. The long and short of it is, nothing surprises him. He is always on guard. He is not going to argue that this is a healthy way of being, but it’s the way he has been for a long time.

When Bond pulls up alongside Daniel next to the pavement, the man freezes. 

‘Please get in the car,’ says Bond. ‘I’m armed.’ He is armed, but he’s also technically not supposed to be threatening civilians. That counts as kidnapping. But maybe Daniel doesn’t know that.

Daniel studies him -- rather, his car. ‘Is that a real Aston Martin?’

‘I would never purchase fakes,’ Bond reaches for his seatbelt. ‘Here, do you drive?’ 

Daniel nods. 

‘You can drive. Just get in.’

. . .

Daniel drives. He’s a much more careful driver than Bond, but Bond suspects this has more to do with the fact that Daniel knows he has a gun, and less to do with his usual driving habits.

‘Where are we going?’ 

‘We can go anywhere you’d like,’ Bond tells him. ‘Within reason.’ For instance, Bond hopes Daniel doesn’t suggest they go to Cornwall. 

‘Okay,’ says Danny. ‘You’re a crap kidnapper.’ But he takes the next left, and follows the signposts to the A2.

. . .

Bond doesn’t really have a plan. Or, no, he doesn’t have a well-thought out plan about how this whole thing with Daniel will work out. For one thing, he doesn’t have an objective. The note he has left Q on his fridge reads simply _Gone for a drive_.

‘I’m taking you to Bexley,’ says Daniel. ‘ ‘S where Boothroyd and I grew up. If you off me there, my body will be found and someone will put the two and two together. Boothroyd will go to jail.’ 

_Boothroyd_. Bond turns the name over in his head. ‘Even if I’m the one who pulls the trigger? I have no intention of killing you, Daniel.’ 

‘If you don’t plan to kill me,’ Daniel keeps his eyes on the road and his knuckles are white from gripping the steering wheel. ‘Then at least call me Danny? I hate the name Daniel.’ 

‘Danny, then,’ Bond assents easily enough. It costs him nothing, ‘Surely Boothroyd hated his name more?’ 

Danny laughs rudely, ‘He did. Hated it so much he changed it before he headed off to Cambridge.’ There’s a roundabout and he steals a glance at the side mirror on Bond’s side. ‘You can be honest with me, Bond. Boothroyd swears up and down that you aren’t his sugar daddy. But I still think you are. You know I won’t judge.’ 

‘Because of Scottie?’ Bond says. 

‘Scottie is not my,’ Danny tenses up again. 

‘The two of you shared a dessert,’ Bond points out quietly. ‘With one fork. It sends a certain message.’ 

Danny is silent for the rest of the drive to Bexley.

. . .

‘My mum died here,’ says Danny. ‘She was high on some drugs -- we were young then, so Boothroyd and I never asked which drugs. She walked into a bus.’

Danny has parked the Aston Martin next to a sharp curb. There’s an old woman crossing the street with her shopping and she starts and stops to look at the Aston Martin at least three times. 

Danny is giving Bond a look, ‘I bet you get that a lot.’ 

‘Me?’ Bond feigns ignorance. ‘Or my car?’ 

Danny smiles. The moment gives Bond to take in his surroundings, even if there isn’t that much to take in. There’s the bus stop, and the corner off-licence. This could have been any corner, except Q’s mother had died here. If Q had been the one to bring him here, then Bond wouldn’t have believed it, but Danny is different. 

Maybe part of Q died that day too. A part of Q died, and something fell away from Danny -- but he doesn’t believe it’s dead or gone. Something that he’s trying to find again ever since. Q doesn’t look, of course, because he’s not an optimist. 

‘I’m sorry about your mother, Danny.’ 

‘Don’t be,’ says Danny. ‘It was a long time ago.’

. . .

Next, they pull up to a row of flats which look abandoned. There is the vestige of a Harrington’s For Sale sign hanging from one of the posts.

‘There’s been talk for years to industrialise this area,’ says Danny. ‘I think they started but then someone forgot we were here.’ He turns off the key in the ignition and looks at Bond again, ‘Some kids might key your car if we leave it here.’ He knows, Bond thinks, because he’s probably done it himself. 

‘I’m due for a paintjob,’ says Bond. ‘The car will be fine where it is.’ 

Danny produces a key for one of the flats and the place certainly smells like no one’s been here for at least a decade. It’s a small flat, with one bedroom upstairs and a smaller room downstairs right by the kitchen. Bond thinks he might hear rats scurrying in the walls. 

‘And here,’ Danny’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts. ‘Is where Dad died. The police were here for ages. He died because he drank.’ 

Bond thinks back to Q and the whisky. 

‘Why are you telling me all this?’ 

Danny shrugs, ‘You have a gun.’ Well, yes, Bond thinks. That’s as good of a reason as any. A certain strain of avoidance must run thick as blood in the Holt family. 

‘And if I didn’t? Would you still tell me?’ 

Danny looks away from him. He pinches between his temples, the way Q does sometimes when he’s irritated. 

‘Would you believe me? Do you believe me? I tried to go to the papers this morning, to tell them the truth. Everyone wants to hear lies, because apparently lies are easier to swallow.’ Danny laughs. ‘Do you want to hear something funny?’ 

‘Sure,’ says Bond. ‘What’s funny?’ 

‘When I saw you sitting at the table,’ Danny says. ‘I thought to myself, ‘Hey, Boothroyd’s got himself a man who looks like he’d own a sex dungeon.’ And you know, that sort of thing makes sense to me. Boothroyd likes to punish himself. It’s probably quicker and more convenient if he has somebody on hand to punish him at his beck and call. Alex was.’ He stops himself again. 

‘Are you sure you’re not going to shoot me?’ 

‘Positive,’ Bond nods. 

Then his mobile rings. Restricted number, which means it’s one of three people, ‘Bond.’ 

‘I know you’re not due in to go anywhere for another two days,’ says Mallory. ‘But your flight to Schipol leaves in four hours. You’ll be briefed on the plane. Sorry to cut your weekend short.’ 

Danny doesn’t appear to be listening, but Bond can’t take that chance, ‘Yes darling, I won’t be home until later but I won’t forget the ham. I’ll leave now.’ 

Afterwards, Danny makes a noise. 

‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ Bond tells him. ‘But that wasn’t your brother. We have to go now.’


	16. Danny: Wonderland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Of course he stinks...of purity.' Danny goes to a party.
> 
> Warnings: lots of drug use, dubious consent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so sorry for this being late! For anyone who's still sticking with me, I tend not to post until I've written a new chapter despite having chapters to post, if only to ensure that I do finish this. A quick flashback, but should become relevant later!

‘Mr. Steven is in his bedroom,’ says Steve’s valet sounding like a Wodehouse novel. Boothroyd used to own the whole set and Danny once attempted to read one and couldn’t even make it past the first chapter. ‘He said he would receive you, so please, go in. I will return with some refreshments.’ 

Before Danny can open the door to Steve’s room, the door opens revealing Steve with tousled hair. He looks like he’d just woken up. He blinks blearily at Danny and clicks his tongue at the valet.

‘Well, go on, Willis.’ says Steve. ‘The tea isn’t going to make itself. Or do you want coffee?’ 

‘Erm,’ Danny hesitates a moment. ‘Yeah, I mean. No. Tea’s fine.’ 

He follows Steve into the bedroom and Steve locks the door behind him. 

‘Not that it matters,’ he says, a bit bitter. ‘The staff have keys. How do you even know where I live? You didn’t ask Joe, did you?’ 

Danny has to work out who Joe is, and then he remembers. ‘Of course not. You -- you told me once.’

Steve considers this, ‘Was I high?’ 

‘Yes,’ Danny looks around the room. Lots of Eton memorabilia, and there’s a picture of Steve riding a horse. The entire room is about two times bigger than the room he and Boothroyd used to share at home. ‘I just. I didn’t count on staying for tea or anything. I just wanted to see if you were...okay.’ 

Steve touches the side of Danny’s face, ‘And to ask why I didn’t tell you why I got expelled?’ 

‘Well, my brother told me, and I just thought --’ 

‘Oh Danny,’ Steve kisses him deep and wet on the mouth. Danny’s cock twitches in his pants, and he has to remind himself that he’s not here for -- that. Or any drugs. ‘That’s very cute. But we’re not seeing each other...are we?’ 

That’s the thing about university, Danny thinks. Everyone’s obsessed with not labelling things. Being fucking clever. He and Steve are ‘not’ seeing each other; he is okay with this, but Steve doesn’t have to say it like that. 

‘No,’ Danny says. Maybe he should have listened to Boothroyd the first time, when Boothroyd had told him not to snog Steve in Lola Lo. But then Steve kisses him again and Danny stops thinking. 

‘Good,’ Steve steps away from him just in time, when the valet unlocks the door of his bedroom to bring in tea and biscuits.’ He smiles, all sharpness and poison at the valet. 

‘Danny’s here to see if I had any advice for him about Cambridge. I assume I’m still qualified to give advice?’ 

‘Of course, Mr. Steve. I’ll leave you alone.’ 

Steve laughs after the valet locks the door again and muffles the sound in his pillow. Which is just as well, because it’s not a nice sound. Danny sits down next to him and Steve moves to press fingers against his bare spine. 

‘Joe must have warned you about me, Danny.’ Steve says. ‘He must have said by now that I’m a very bad boy. I’m so bad, Dad’s instructed Willis and the others not to let me leave the house. But there’s a party tonight. Come with me.’ _Come with me_ , says also all the other parts of Steve’s body. He presses Danny down on the bed and pins his wrists above his head. ‘Say yes, Danny.’

No, Boothroyd has not told him Steve is a ‘bad, bad boy,’ but Boothroyd has other means to disapprove, other choice words. But Boothroyd doesn’t get to disapprove. Not anymore. Danny strains up for a kiss. 

‘I don’t give a fuck what my brother thinks,’ he says. ‘Yes.’

. . .

Steve gives him an address and a scarf before he leaves. Which is just as well because it’s cold, and Danny has finger marks on his throat.

‘Meet me there at ten,’ he’d said. 

Danny blinks blearily at him, ‘How are you going to sneak out of the house?’ 

‘Sweet boy,’ Steve had laughed. ‘Rich will love you. Let me worry about that. Don’t you also have to sneak out of the house?’ 

‘No,’ Danny says, and it’s the truth. That night, he leaves Jacob passed out on the floor and goes to the address that Steve has scribbled down for him. The flat is nestled in a dark alleyway in Soho, next to one of the more popular gay clubs. 

Steve is already there waiting for him. He greets Danny with a kiss, ‘You’re late.’ 

‘Only by five minutes,’ Danny protests, but Steve seems to forget it already. He takes Danny by the hand and they go inside, pushing past a throng of bodies. The bits of the flat that aren’t covered by bodies look expensive. Most of these bodies aren’t really wearing clothes. An older man holding a crack pipe looks him up and down and Danny grips Steve’s hand tighter.

‘...You’ve brought me to a sex party?’ 

For whatever reason, the music that’s playing also seems inordinately loud, which Danny doesn’t mind usually, but --

Steve raises an eyebrow, ‘What?’ 

‘Nothing,’ but the part of Danny that is inextricably twins with Boothroyd thinks that he ought to leave, now. But he thinks about Boothroyd curling up around a bottle of Chardonnay, maybe port. Probably port, he’s a Cambridge lad now. 

But so is Steve Fields, and look at where _he_ is now.

It’s like the mirror is breaking away at its last edges, and there’s no way to put the pieces back together again. Boothroyd might disagree, but Danny can be a realist too. 

The difference between them is this: Boothroyd is alone, and Danny has the chance finally to not be. So he stays. Steve waves to the man with the pipe and after handing over the pipe to someone else, then he slides over, greeting Steve first with a kiss. The second time the man looks at Danny, he’s managed to only flinch a little. 

‘Dedalus,’ says the man presumably to Steve. (Boothroyd had owned a tattered second edition of Joyce.) ‘Who’s this exquisite young man? He stinks so particularly.’ 

Danny opens his mouth to say something, but Steve elbows him hard in the ribs. ‘This is Danny, Rich. And Danny, this is Rich.’ To Rich he says, ‘Of course he stinks. Of purity.’ 

Purity. The way Steve says it makes the word seem ugly. Like it should be purged from the world. 

‘I don’t,’ Danny starts, but then Rich presses a finger to his lips. 

‘Of course, _Purity_.’ Rich says and something in the air goes cold like icy prickles on Danny’s skin. Maybe it’s because he’s leaned in and breathing right near Danny’s jawline. ‘That’s it. We can fix that.’ 

Rich steps back and reaches into his jacket. He dangles a plastic bag in front of him; in it are clear pills. The kind that Steve used to give him. Steve is just standing there, watching. Danny has never seen Steve look like that at him, or maybe at anyone else too. 

(There are a lot of things he doesn’t know about Steve.)

Then Steve steps forward and takes Danny’s hand. He doesn’t look like that anymore. He looks the way he’d looked on that night out, that had made Danny want to snog him in the first place. ‘Go on, Danny.’ Steve says. ‘The pills won’t bite. You’ve taken them before.’ 

Rich seems to smile over both of them, ‘Make yourselves at home. It’s wonderland.’ 

Danny closes his eyes, and Steve places one of the pills on the tip of his tongue.


	17. Q: Unknowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _‘He kidnapped me,’ Daniel shrugs. ‘Said he had a gun and let me drive his Aston Martin.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! Sorry for being away so long, I've moved countries and it took longer than I thought to get my bearings. For those who are still reading, thanks for sticking it out with me! I do have this story's ending and it's going through revisions, so this WILL be finished, one way or the other...

When Q wakes up in Bond’s bed, he’s alone. There’s a panicky moment, where he’d wondered if he and Bond had. But no, no they hadn’t. Q’s still in his clothes; there’s a crick in his neck. 

‘Bond?’ 

There isn’t just silence in the flat. There is _silence_. It’s heavy, immovable and there’s a strange dryness in Q’s throat as he smooths himself down and gets up from the bed. He makes Bond’s bed and wonders if he ought to toss the sheets and the duvet cover into the wash. No, Bond can do that himself. 

There is a note from Bond on the fridge:

_Gone for a drive_.

In the silence, Q can hear something vibrate. He goes to the guest room and finds his phone. It’s Moneypenny. 

‘This is the fourth time I’ve tried to ring you,’ she says by the way of hello. ‘I’m probably not supposed to tell you this but.’ 

‘But?’ Q’s mind goes to Daniel in a gutter. He’s always been expecting a call like this, just not from Moneypenny. 

‘But 007 came in this morning and asked me for your brother’s file. I had to pinch it from M’s office.’ 

‘Why did you even give it to him?’ Q says. 

‘He bought me the price of entry,’ Moneypenny says. Q can hear the shrug in her voice. ‘And he’s worried about you, I think that’s sort of sweet. You know, in the spirit of interdepartmental cooperation sort of way.’ 

Q snorts, ‘I hope it never gets out that M’s secretary can be bought with a large triple shot dirty Chai. Did he say anything else?’ 

‘Nope.’ 

Q’s mobile beeps again. An incoming call from Bond. He doesn’t think Moneypenny has anything else to tell him (or anything else that she’d want to tell him) so he tells her goodbye. 

‘Bond.’ 

‘Q,’ Bond’s voice is a bit muffled. If Q strains his ears, he thinks he can hear the sound of rushing wind. He must be driving. ‘Are you heading to work?’ 

‘Of course I am,’ Q says. This is the longest time he’s left R and the others without supervision, and the admission of the fact that he’s heading off to work means that he has to head off to work. He goes to the study and starts packing up his things. ‘I’m heading out right now as soon as I find my shoes.’ 

He should ask Bond what he’s doing with Daniel’s file, but there’s always a chance that Daniel is --

‘Have you eaten?’ 

‘No,’ Q thinks about the leftovers still in Bond’s fridge. ‘...I was going to steal something from your fridge.’

‘That’s rude,’ but there’s a slight laugh in Bond’s voice, one so slight that Q might have even imagined it. ‘Meet me for brunch.’

. . .

Q and Bond meet for breakfast occasionally (brunch counts), but they never meet for lunch or dinner. However, they do visit each other at home under the pretense of business. There is a whole complicated matrix that comes with how Q interacts with Bond, a profound matrix that’s so intricate, functional and above anything else -- incommensurably exact -- that Q can’t get rid of the feeling that it only takes one hypothetical anomaly for something to go spectacularly wrong.

And something does, because Bond walks in with Daniel is tow. 

Q steadies himself, but he’s pretty sure his expression hasn’t even twitched. ‘Daniel. What are you doing here?’ 

Daniel gives him a look, ‘Hello to you too.’ Then he adds, ‘Q.’ 

Q looks accusingly at Bond, ‘What. Did you do?’ 

Bond shrugs, ‘I have a plane to catch.’ Which is not at all an answer. ‘I thought you two could use some brunch. I know you’ve already eaten Danny, but please. Humour me.’’ He takes out his billfold and takes out a few bills. ‘This should cover it.’ (Almost like he’s paying a pair of prostitutes. _This should cover it, now put on a show._ )

‘Bond,’ Q says. ‘You’re not due for Panama for another two days.’ By Panama he means Paris, but he thinks Bond knows that. It’s also not the best cover and he’s hoping that Daniel doesn’t. ‘I’m not trimming your plants again.’ 

There’s a fleeting look of surprise that passes Bond’s face; Q catches the bare last of it. ‘I’m not going to Panama.’ But something makes him turn back and he puts a hand on Q’s shoulder. ‘Eat something. Please.’ 

Then he’s gone. Daniel’s eyes follow Bond out to his car the whole way. 

‘You are sleeping with him.’ 

Q makes a face. ‘Fine, if thinking that helps you shut up, then yes. I’m sleeping with him.’ And that too, is not the point. The point is Bond just left to board a plane to somewhere, not to Paris. Q thinks he should have been told. 

A waitress comes by to ask if they want coffee or tea, Q asks for a pot of Earl Grey and Daniel asks for the same. The waitress suggests after giving them a bit of an odd look, that they go for the pot of tea for two. 

‘All this doesn’t explain why what you were doing with him. Tell me, Daniel.’ This is a new feeling for Q, not knowing things. If this is how Daniel feels all the time, then it’s terrifying. 

‘He kidnapped me,’ Daniel shrugs. ‘Said he had a gun and let me drive his Aston Martin.’ 

Q presses two fingers hard into his temple, ‘Where’d you drive to?’ 

‘Bexley.’ 

‘You took him to,’ Q can think of ten thousand things to say to that, and then nothing to say at all. Fortunately the waitress comes back with their tea. ‘Why did you do that?’ 

‘Because I wanted to tell the fucking truth to someone,’ Daniel says; he’s at least conscientious enough to lower his voice. ‘Yes, Bond had a gun, but he listened to me.’ 

_We can have secrets._

_But we don’t have to have lies._

Q doesn’t know why he’s remembering this now. 

‘Besides, if he is who Scottie says he is, then he probably already knows, doesn’t he?’ 

‘What?’ Q says sharply. 

‘Do you really want me to say?’ Daniel peers at him. 

A different server is back to take their orders and Q is not feeling hungry. Still, Bond has already left them money so he orders an Eggs Benedict. Seems apropos to his current predicament. Danny orders some plain waffles and syrup and Q notes that he’s chosen the cheapest item on the menu. He wonders if his brother always does this. If Danny needs more money. 

‘No, I don’t want you to.’ 

‘...So it’s true.’

Q stares at Daniel across the table. ‘Does Scottie know where you are?’ He makes a note to himself, that he’ll have to reprogramme the tracker on the man’s car when he gets into Q-branch. 

‘No,’ says Daniel. ‘He doesn’t know that I’ve gone to the papers.’ A vague ugly smile stretches across his mouth. ‘You’ll like this, Q. She didn’t believe a damn word I said. Thought I was talking out of my arse. Practically laughed me out of her office.’ 

‘I don’t _like_ it, Daniel.’ Q supposes the point is redundant but he _needs_ Daniel to understand. ‘I merely told you it was going to happen this way. And I’m sorry it has.’ 

Daniel studies him intently for a long minute, ‘Look at you. Are you ever wrong about anything?’ 

‘When I am wrong, I pay dearly for it.’ Q sighs, ‘I really try not to be wrong.’ 

That too, is honest. Their respective breakfasts come and they eat in silence. Q can’t remember the last time he and Daniel had sat down to eat together. Although he’s already eaten before, Daniel finishes before Q does and without thinking, reaches across the table to pick at the bed of rocket, which Q hasn’t touched yet. This feels nice, and it’s good that Daniel eats well. It’s normal. Q hates Bond. 

Then Daniel says, ‘I can prove you wrong.’


	18. Alex: Not Waving but Drowning (Interlude III)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex's and Danny's first meeting. _'I'm sorry, I don't know why I lied. I usually don't.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last of the Alex interludes. Chapter title from the poem by Stevie Smith, somehow appropriate I feel like. Thank you all so much for reading!

There is a man wearing U’s face on the bridge, and he is not all right. 

Alex knows this almost instinctively because underneath all of his efforts to be a normal person, he knows exactly how it must feel like. He thinks U must feel like that too, invariably, as he’s distracted by various smashed SIM cards with invaluable data. Because everyone feels like that and U too, is human. He might pretend not to be, but Alex thinks -- Alex knows, that he is. 

He must. 

Alex runs the same route along the bridge every morning before work, and when he sees the man wearing U’s face -- there’s another part of Alex that can’t bear to think that U’s real name could be Joe -- he thinks, 

_providence. Maybe you don’t want to be saved, but I’ll save you with the truth. Because you’re going to drown without me._

‘Are you all right?’ 

The man looks up at him and Alex thinks that his eyes are as inscrutable as U’s are. But there is something else about them, this is a man who wants to be saved. 

‘You don’t know me. If you knew anything about me,’ says the man. ‘You’ll know that I’m always all right.’ 

Alex hesitates, ‘I don’t know what that means.’ It’s one part of his life that’s not confusing. It’s not inscrutable. It’s as simple as telling the truth. One is either all right, or they’re not. And this man, a desperate version of a man who spends his days in a basement cubicle, is clearly not. 

‘I am all right,’ the man says again. His cigarette finally lights. His hand is shaking, upon further investigation, Alex sees that the whole of the man is shaking. As if he’s coming apart by invisible seams. ‘That’s what it means.’ 

‘I don’t believe you,’ says Alex. ‘But all right. I run here every day.’ 

He will probably never run near the bridge again.

. . .

Nor does Alex go to Q-branch, because U must be angry at him. The last thing he’d ever said, ‘If it makes you feel any better, yes Alistair. You are a normal person.’ And the way he’d said it, had been so full of contempt and brutally, scathingly _honest_ \-- maybe this is the only way U can be honest.

‘I bought you some lunch,’ says U. He’s standing next to Alex’s desk holding a paper bag. ‘For last time.’ 

It’s been three days since he’s seen the man on the bridge And years since he’s seen U. But the single letter that he chooses to go by might as well stand for Ubiquitous because U is everywhere. On the bridge in the dead of morning, here in Alex’s office space and not in the basement.

‘Last time was years ago,’ says Alex. ‘They let you out of the basement.’ 

‘I got a promotion,’ says U. ‘Now I get to come out to play and eat sushi sometimes.’ He doesn’t apologise, of course. Why would he need to? 

‘Congratulations,’ says Alex. He holds out his hand. U hesitates, but he takes it and gives Alex one firm shake. ‘Thank you for lunch.’ Truth is, U is not the only one with a promotion. Alex’s got one too, except his means a slightly more private desk next to a window. But U has never been to where he works, and so there’s no way U would have known that.

And just like that, they’re strangers again.

. . .

The next day, Alex sees the man from the bridge again. (Finally.) He’s holding a dried up carton like a talisman, and he looks like he’s been waiting for a long time. Like he’s been waiting for Alex for a long time.

‘I’ve been waiting for you since forever,’ the man says. ‘I thought I’d never see you again.’ The man smiles, nervous, shy and open. ‘I’m Danny.’ 

_Forever_. Alex ought to hate the word given how imprecise it in and in his world, he has no room for imprecision but when the man -- Danny, a name like any other says it -- it makes his skin crawl. ‘I’m,’ Alex thinks for a moment. ‘I’m Joe.’ 

At this, Danny’s face twitches, ‘I don’t have the greatest luck with guys name Joe,’ 

‘Neither do I,’ says Alex and they both laugh. ‘But that’s all right too, I don’t believe in luck.’

. . .

They walk together as the sun comes up. Eventually they wander back to Alex’s flat because Alex has lied about his name and he needs to make up for it. U for Ubiquitous, the one that’s almost entirely a figment of his imagination, the one who’s stuck in the back of Alex’s head, chastises him for it.

‘This is where you live?’ says Danny. He’s clearly impressed. Alex tries to imagine U looking impressed and he can’t think of where to start. 

‘Yes,’ Alex says. Despite the lie that he can tell, the flat is his. It’s one of the very few things that he owns, has worked for. His schooling has always been marked by those who see his sterling potential; that, and the fact that he has nothing to spend money on has constituted in him owning a nice penthouse flat at the age of thirty-three. ‘I work for a bank.’ 

‘Sounds cushy.’ 

That’s two lies now, and Danny believes them both. ‘I need to grab a shower.’ Alex says. ‘But please come up. I’d like you to.’ 

Danny brightens, ‘I’d like that too, Joe. Or do you like Joey?’ 

They wait for the lift, and Alex watches the number slowly dip from five to the ground floor. ‘I lied.’ 

‘...What?’ 

‘My name,’ says Alex. ‘It’s Alex, not Joe. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I lied. I usually don’t.’ 

There’s a long pause, then Danny takes his hand and Alex is suddenly terrified. However, all Danny does is press his lips on the inside of Alex’s wrist. ‘Did you lie about this?’ 

‘No,’ says Alex, holding his breath.

The lift comes, and when they step inside, Danny doesn’t let go of his hand.

. . .

After Alex showers, he finds Danny on the balcony smoking. Which is just as well because Alex half expects to find him gone. Danny watches him as he dries his hair. Danny watches him, like he’s _someone_.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ 

‘I’m surprised you’re still here,’ Alex admits. He’ll start telling the truth from now on. The best he can. 

‘I could go,’ Danny says. ‘But the fact is, you’ve invited me up and I’m labouring under the possibility that we might have great sex. Except you probably have to work, don’t you?’

’I,’ Alex stutters and Danny hesitates. 

‘Was that too forward? I’m sorry if it was.’ 

‘It’s,’ A time in his life must have come and gone, when Alex would have welcomed -- even _craved_ , these sorts of forward advances because all he would have had to do, was give in. It’s always seemed absurdly simple. Now he’s terrified. He’s terrified because he has no idea how this can be. ‘It’s just been a long time,’ Alex says. ‘...And no, I don’t have work today but. Can we start with something else?’ 

_It’s been a long time._ Alex has lied again. But Danny doesn’t notice and moves to take his hand. In most stories, one doesn’t get any more than three chances. But this isn’t a story. This is his life. His normal life. 

‘Sure,’ says Danny. ‘Like what?’

. . .

They start, incidentally, with food. Alex is a creature of habit, so he rides the tube halfway to work, and takes Danny to the bistro where he usually has a late dinner. But maybe he’s not a creature of habit this time around because it’s during the daytime and he’s with someone. The server who comes by to drop by a jug of water and menus gives Alex a knowing smile.

‘...Come here often?’ Danny asks. 

Enough so that he knows the menu by heart, but Alex makes a pretense of skimming the entrees. ‘After work,’ Alex nods. ‘Alone. The staff probably thinks I’m destitute.’ 

Danny peers at him, ‘You’re the last person anyone would think that about.’ 

Alex laughs, ‘There are other ways one can be destitute.’ And there, Danny’s expression turns a little, like wine on a tipping point, and Alex realises that he probably should have not said that. He reaches out a hand, and settles his fingers on top of Danny’s knuckles. ‘It’s fine. I can pay.’ 

Danny hesitates, ‘I’m not that kind of person, Joe. I mean, Alex.’ 

‘I know you’re not,’ Alex says, and the logical part of him says that there is no way that he could know that, but yes, there is a way. He just knows. He can trust. Like a normal person. ‘Your turn next time.’ 

Next time. Danny doesn’t stop smiling throughout throughout the meal, and Alex thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, like a thousand suns rising.


End file.
